and did all the cooking and sewing. A happier couple never lived.

Celibates both, they were bound together by an equal hatred of marriage.
The sister abhorred all men, the brother looked upon all women with
suspicion; but they adored each other, each considering the other an
exception to the general perversity of the sex.

In speaking of him she always said: "Monsieur Planus, my brother!"--and
he, with the same affectionate solemnity, interspersed all his sentences
with "Mademoiselle Planus, my sister!" To those two retiring and
innocent creatures, Paris, of which they knew nothing, although they
visited it every day, was a den of monsters of two varieties, bent upon
doing one another the utmost possible injury; and whenever, amid the
gossip of the quarter, a conjugal drama came to their ears, each of them,
beset by his or her own idea, blamed a different culprit.

"It is the husband's fault," would be the verdict of "Mademoiselle
Planus, my sister."

"It is the wife's fault," "Monsieur Planus, my brother," would reply.

"Oh! the men--"

"Oh! the women--"

That was their one never-failing subject of discussion in those rare
hours of idleness which old Sigismond set aside in his busy day, which
was as carefully ruled off as his account-books. For some time past the
discussions between the brother and sister had been marked by
extraordinary animation. They were deeply interested in what was taking