But the mistress seemed to have the gift of divination. She worked
surely--if she struck out one way you might be certain that success was
there. In all her enterprises, "good luck" stood close by her; she
scented failures from afar, and the firm never made a bad debt. Still
Michel continued to tremble. The first mill had been followed by many
more; then the old system appeared insufficient to Madame Desvarennes. As
she wished to keep up with the increase of business she had steam-mills
built,--which are now grinding three hundred million francs' worth of
corn every year.

Fortune had favored the house immensely, but Michel continued to tremble.
From time to time when the mistress launched out a new business, he
timidly ventured on his usual saying:

"Wife, you're going to ruin us."

But one felt it was only for form's sake, and that he himself no longer
meant what he said. Madame Desvarennes received this plaintive
remonstrance with a calm smile, and answered, maternally, as to a child:

"There, there, don't be frightened."

Then she would set to work again, and direct with irresistible vigor the
army of clerks who peopled her counting-houses.

In fifteen years' time, by prodigious efforts of will and energy, Madame
Desvarennes had made her way from the lonely and muddy Rue
Neuve-Coquenard to the mansion in the Rue Saint-Dominique. Of the bakery
there was no longer question. It was some time since the business in the