days in comfort under her own roof, after the long privations and trials
through which she had reared her son and had seen him overcome the
difficulties of his professorial career. She had died peacefully in this
house, and although a year had passed, her room remained as she had left
it. The professor really needed it for his library, which grew from day
to day, but he preferred to leave the room unused, as sacred to his
mother's memory.

The only heritage that she left him was her old servant, the taciturn
Florou, whose senile caprices he endured patiently, bearing with her
uncertain service and poor cooking. Florou's rule, however, rose no
higher than the ground-floor. Her master found peace and quiet in his
own room upstairs. Here he worked; at his table before the window he
prepared his lessons, and read his favorite authors. Here, with pen in
hand and his books spread out before him, he liked to look dreamily over
the roofs of the other houses at the sea and the hazy outline of the
neighboring islands, or to lean back with closed eyelids and look--at
nothing, for he was asleep.

The professor was very fond of his house. Since he had owned it, he went
out but little except to attend to his classes or take his regular walk,
and it was always with a new pleasure that he looked upon his walls and
opened his door again.

This evening he came home with even greater contentment than usual, as
to a haven of refuge from the fancied dangers that lurked in his
friend's eulogy of the plain sister.

"That would be the finishing stroke!" he said aloud, as he carefully
folded his coat, put on an old dressing-gown, and tied a silk