coaches arriving and the travellers descending at the post-inn; and on
court days he could watch the proceedings around the offices of the
mayor and the justice of peace. For these reasons, Beauvisage would
not have exchanged his house for the chateau, in spite of its lordly
air, its stone walls, and its splendid situation.



VIII

IN WHICH THE DOT, ONE OF THE HEROINES OF THIS HISTORY, APPEARS

Entering the Beauvisage house we find a versatile, at the farther end
of which rises the staircase. To right we enter a large salon with two
windows opening on the square; to left is a handsome dining-room,
looking on the street. The floor above is the one occupied by the
family.

Notwithstanding the large fortune of the Beauvisage husband and wife,
their establishment consisted of only a cook and a chamber-maid, the
latter a peasant, who washed and ironed and frotted the floors rather
than waited on her two mistresses, who were accustomed to spend their
time in dressing and waiting upon each other. Since the sale of the
business to Jean Violette, the horse and cabriolet used by Phileas,
and kept at the Hotel de la Poste, had been relinquished and sold.

At the moment when Phileas reached his house after the Giguet meeting,
his wife, already informed of the resolutions passed, had put on her
boots and shawl and was preparing to go to her father; for she felt
very sure that Madame Marion would, on that same evening, make her