"Well, monsieur, I hope you no longer feel the effects of your
fall," said the old lady, rising from an antique armchair that
stood by the chimney, and offering him a seat.

"No, madame. I have come to thank you for the kind care you gave
me, and above all mademoiselle, who heard me fall."

As he uttered this speech, stamped with the exquisite stupidity
given to the mind by the first disturbing symptoms of true love,
Hippolyte looked at the young girl. Adelaide was lighting the
Argand lamp, no doubt that she might get rid of a tallow candle
fixed in a large copper flat candlestick, and graced with a heavy
fluting of grease from its guttering. She answered with a slight
bow, carried the flat candlestick into the ante-room, came back,
and after placing the lamp on the chimney shelf, seated herself
by her mother, a little behind the painter, so as to be able to
look at him at her ease, while apparently much interested in the
burning of the lamp; the flame, checked by the damp in a dingy
chimney, sputtered as it struggled with a charred and
badly-trimmed wick. Hippolyte, seeing the large mirror that
decorated the chimney-piece, immediately fixed his eyes on it to
admire Adelaide. Thus the girl's little stratagem only served to
embarrass them both.

While talking with Madame Leseigneur, for Hippolyte called her
so, on the chance of being right, he examined the room, but
unobtrusively and by stealth.

The Egyptian figures on the iron fire-dogs were scarcely visible,