ght as a bird, Rigolette descended the staircase, followed
by Rodolph, who went into his own room to brush off the dust which had
settled on him in M. Pipelet's garret. We will hereafter disclose how it
was that Rodolph was not informed of the carrying off of Fleur-de-Marie
from the farm at Bouqueval, and why he had not visited the Morels the
day after his conversation with Madame d'Harville.

Rodolph, furnished, by way of saving appearances, with a thick roll of
papers, entered Rigolette's chamber.

Rigolette was nearly the same age as Goualeuse, her old prison
acquaintance. There was between these two young girls the same
difference that there is between laughter and tears; between joyous
light-heartedness and melancholy dejection; between the wildest
thoughtlessness and a dark and constant reflection on the future;
between a delicate, refined, elevated, poetic nature, exquisitely
sensitive, and incurably wounded by remorse, and a gay, lively, happy,
good, and compassionate nature. Rigolette had no sorrows but those
derived from the woes of others, and with these she sympathised with all
her might, devoting herself, body and soul, to any suffering fellow
creature; but, her back turned on them, to use a common expression, she
thought no more about them. She often checked her bursts of laughter by
a flood of tears, and then checked her tears by renewing her laughter.
Like a real Parisian, Rigolette preferred excitement to calm, and motion
to repose; the loud and echoing harmony of the orchestra at the fete of
the Chartreuse or the Colysee to the soft murmurs of the breeze, waters,
and leaves; the bustling disturbance of the thoroughfares of Paris to
the silent solitude of the fields; the brilliancy of fireworks, the
flaring of the grand finale, the uproar of the maroons and Roman
candles, to the serenity of a lovely night,--starlight, clear, and
still. Alas, yes! the dear, good little girl actually preferred the
pavement of the streets of the capital to the fresh moss of the shaded
paths, perfumed with violets; the dust of the Boulevards to the waving
of the ears of corn, mingled with the scarlet of the wild poppies and
the azure of the bluebells.

Rigolette only left her chamber on Sundays, and each morning to provide
her prescribed allowance of chickweed, bread, milk, and millet, for
herself and her two birds, as Madame Pipelet observed; but she lived in
Paris for Paris, and would have been wretched to have resided