and rose to open the door of a salon which looked out on the inner
court. The dress of the woman was somewhat like that of the Sisters of
Mercy.

"Madame, I bring you a tenant," said the priest, ushering Godefroid
into the salon, where the latter saw three persons sitting in
armchairs near Madame de la Chanterie.

These three persons rose; the mistress of the house rose; then, when
the priest had drawn up another armchair for Godefroid, and when the
future tenant had seated himself in obedience to a gesture of Madame
de la Chanterie, accompanied by the old-fashioned words, "Be seated,
monsieur," the man of the boulevards fancied himself at some enormous
distance from Paris,--in lower Brittany or the wilds of Canada.

Silence has perhaps its own degrees. Godefroid, already penetrated
with the silence of the rues Massillon and Chanoinesse, where two
carriages do not pass in a month, and grasped by the silence of the
courtyard and the tower, may have felt that he had reached the very
heart of silence in this still salon, guarded by so many old streets,
old courts, old walls.

This part of the Ile, which is called "the Cloister," has preserved
the character of all cloisters; it is damp, cold, and monastically
silent even at the noisiest hours of the day. It will be remarked,
also, that this portion of the Cite, crowded between the flank of
Notre-Dame and the river, faces the north, and is always in the shadow
of the cathedral. The east winds swirl through it unopposed, and the
fogs of the Seine are caught and retained by the black walls of the
old metropolitan church. No one will therefore be surprised at the