the very spot upon which he had set his foot in the morning, that he might set it back again there in the evening.     

       With the same methodical step, he reached his house, walked up the two pairs of stairs, and, taking out his pass-key, opened the door of his apartment.     

       The dwelling was fit for the man; and every thing from the very hall, betrayed his peculiarities. There, evidently, every piece of furniture must have its invariable place, every object its irrevocable shelf or hook. All around were evidences, if not exactly of poverty,       at least of small means, and of the artifices of a respectable economy. Cleanliness was carried to its utmost limits: every thing shone. Not a detail but betrayed the industrious hand of the housekeeper, struggling to defend her furniture against the ravages of time. The velvet on the chairs was darned at the angles as with the needle of a fairy. Stitches of new worsted showed through the faded designs on the hearth-rugs. The curtains had been turned so as to display their least worn side.     

       All the guests enumerated by the shop-keeper, and a few others besides, were in the parlor when M. Favoral came in. But, instead of returning their greeting:     

       “Where is Maxence?” he inquired.     

       “I am expecting him, my dear,” said Mme. Favoral gently.     

       “Always behind time,” he scolded. “It is too trifling.”     

       His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte, interrupted him:     

       “Where is my bouquet, father?” she asked.     

       M. Favoral stopped short, struck his forehead, and with the accent of a man who reveals something incredible, prodigious, unheard of,     

       “Forgotten,” he answered, scanning the syllables:       “I have for-got-ten it.”     

       It was a fact. Every Saturday, on his way home, he was in the habit of stopping at the old woman’s shop in front of the Church of St. Louis, and buying a bouquet for Mlle. Gilberte. And to-day . . .     

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