explorations, and gave a topic of conversation to the unhappy
celibates for many evenings.

In the course of these ramblings Rogron picked up various bits of
information about Provins, its inhabitants, their marriages, together
with stale political news; all of which he narrated to his sister.
Scores of times in his walks he would stop and say,--often to the same
person on the same day,--"Well, what's the news?" When he reached home
he would fling himself on the sofa like a man exhausted with labor,
whereas he was only worn out with the burden of his own dulness.
Dinner came at last, after he had gone twenty times to the kitchen and
back, compared the clocks, and opened and shut all the doors of the
house. So long as the brother and sister could spend their evenings in
paying visits they managed to get along till bedtime; but after they
were compelled to stay at home those evenings became like a parching
desert. Sometimes persons passing through the quiet little square
would hear unearthly noises as though the brother were throttling the
sister; a moment's listening would show that they were only yawning.
These two human mechanisms, having nothing to grind between their
rusty wheels, were creaking and grating at each other. The brother
talked of marrying, but only in despair. He felt old and weary; the
thought of a woman frightened him. Sylvie, who began to see the
necessity of having a third person in the home, suddenly remembered
the little cousin, about whom no one in Provins had yet inquired, the
friends of Madame Lorrain probably supposing that mother and child
were both dead.

Sylvie Rogron never lost anything; she was too thoroughly an old maid
even to mislay the smallest article; but she pretended to have
suddenly found the Lorrains' letter, so as to mention Pierrette