dresses,--first the wool, handful by handful, then the covering.

Too proud to complain, and cut off from society by bashfulness, the poor
girl who was lying there had evidently gone through all the stages of
suffering which the shipwrecked mariner endures, who floats, resting on
a stray spar in the great ocean.

Papa Ravinet was thinking of all this, when a paper lying on the bureau
attracted his eye. He took it up. It was the last will of the poor girl,
and ran thus:--


"Let no one be accused; I die voluntarily. I beg Mrs. Chevassat will
carry the two letters which I enclose to their addresses. She will be
paid whatever I may owe her. Henrietta."


There were the two letters. On the first he read,--

Count Ville-Handry, Rue de Varennest 115. And, on the other,--

M. Maxime de Brevan, 62 Rue Laffitte.

A sudden light seemed to brighten up the small yellowish eye of the
dealer in old clothes; a wicked smile played on his lips; and he uttered
a very peculiar, "Ah!"

But all this passed away in a moment.

His brow grew as dark as ever; and he looked around anxiously and