vanity of a citizen whose foible is gratified. His cupboards
(_ormoires_, as he called them in the popular dialect) were filled
with a quantity of plate that he brought with him. The widow's eyes
gleamed as she obligingly helped him to unpack the soup ladles,
table-spoons, forks, cruet-stands, tureens, dishes, and breakfast
services--all of silver, which were duly arranged upon shelves, besides
a few more or less handsome pieces of plate, all weighing no
inconsiderable number of ounces; he could not bring himself to part
with these gifts that reminded him of past domestic festivals.

"This was my wife's present to me on the first anniversary of our
wedding day," he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver
posset dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover. "Poor dear!
she spent on it all the money she had saved before we were married. Do
you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with my nails for a living,
madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to take my coffee out
of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord! I am not
to be pitied. There's not much fear of my starving for some time to
come."

Finally, Mme. Vauquer's magpie's eye had discovered and read certain
entries in the list of shareholders in the funds, and, after a rough
calculation, was disposed to credit Goriot (worthy man) with something
like ten thousand francs a year. From that day forward Mme. Vauquer
(_nee_ de Conflans), who, as a matter of fact, had seen forty-eight
summers, though she would only own to thirty-nine of them--Mme.
Vauquer had her own ideas. Though Goriot's eyes seemed to have shrunk
in their sockets, though they were weak and watery, owing to some
glandular affection which compelled him to wipe them continually, she
considered him to be a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man.