aside; you are then to look attentively at Mademoiselle Modeste (yes,
I am willing to allow it) during the whole time he is speaking to you.
My worthy friend will ask you to go out and take a walk; at the end of
an hour, that is, about nine o'clock, you are to come back in a great
hurry; try to puff as if you were out of breath, and whisper in
Monsieur Dumay's ear, quite low, but so that Mademoiselle Modeste is
sure to overhear you, these words: 'The young man has come.'"

Exupere was to start the next morning for Paris to begin the study of
law. This impending departure had induced Latournelle to propose him
to his friend Dumay as an accomplice in the important conspiracy which
these directions indicate.

"Is Mademoiselle Modeste suspected of having a lover?" asked Butscha
in a timid voice of Madame Latournelle.

"Hush, Butscha," she replied, taking her husband's arm.

Madame Latournelle, the daughter of a clerk of the supreme court,
feels that her birth authorizes her to claim issue from a
parliamentary family. This conviction explains why the lady, who is
somewhat blotched as to complexion, endeavors to assume in her own
person the majesty of a court whose decrees are recorded in her
father's pothooks. She takes snuff, holds herself as stiff as a
ramrod, poses for a person of consideration, and resembles nothing so
much as a mummy brought momentarily to life by galvanism. She tries to
give high-bred tones to her sharp voice, and succeeds no better in
doing that than in hiding her general lack of breeding. Her social
usefulness seems, however, incontestable when we glance at the
flower-bedecked cap she wears, at the false front frizzling around