some impecunious naturalist, who thus repaid a gift of charity with a
perennial treasure. Some local artist whose heart had misguided his
brush had painted portraits of M. and Madame Popinot. Even in the
bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in
cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to
show the senseless labor they had cost.

The window-curtains were black with smoke, and the hangings absolutely
colorless. Between the fireplace and the large square table at which
the magistrate worked, the cook had set two cups of coffee on a small
table, and two armchairs, in mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncle
and nephew. As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrate
to this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffed
wicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light which
promises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion--a
discovery due to some miser.

"My dear uncle, you ought to wrap yourself more warmly when you go
down to that parlor."

"I cannot bear to keep them waiting, poor souls!--Well, and what do
you want of me?"

"I have come to ask you to dine to-morrow with the Marquise d'Espard."

"A relation of ours?" asked Popinot, with such genuine absence of mind
that Bianchon laughed.

"No, uncle; the Marquise d'Espard is a high and puissant lady, who has
laid before the Courts a petition desiring that a Commission in Lunacy