during the day-time with tables, and clerks sitting on stools, such as
we all remember seeing some fifteen years ago under the "piliers des
Halles." From these outposts, the clerks and apprentices talked,
questioned, answered each other, and called to the passers,--customs
which the great Walter Scott has made use of in his "Fortunes of
Nigel."

The sign, which represented an ermine, hung outside, as we still see
in some village hostelries, from a rich bracket of gilded iron
filagree. Above the ermine, on one side of the sign, were the words:--

LECAMVS

FURRIER

TO MADAME LA ROYNE ET DU ROY NOSTRE SIRE.

On the other side of the sign were the words:--

TO MADAME LA ROYNE-MERE

AND MESSIEURS DV PARLEMENT.

The words "Madame la Royne-mere" had been lately added. The gilding
was fresh. This addition showed the recent changes produced by the
sudden and violent death of Henri II., which overturned many fortunes
at court and began that of the Guises.

The back-shop opened on the river. In this room usually sat the
respectable proprietor himself and Mademoiselle Lecamus. In those days