acquainted with all the successive concièrges
at the Count's house; that he should not go
among them as a stranger, but as an old
friend, anxious to renew pleasant
intercourse; and that if the Intendant's story,
which he had told Monsieur de Créquy in
England, was true, that Mademoiselle was in
hiding at the house of a former concièrge,
why, something relating to her would surely
drop out in the course of conversation. So
he persuaded Clément to remain in-doors,
while he set off on his round, with no
apparent object but to gossip.

"At night he came home,—having seen
Mademoiselle. He told Clément much of
the story relating to Madame Babette that I
have told to you. Of course he had heard
nothing of the ambitious hopes of Morin fils,
—hardly of his existence, I should think.
Madame Babette had received him kindly;
although, for some time, she had kept him
standing in the carriage doorway outside
her door. But, on his complaining of the
draught and his rheumatism, she had asked
him in: first looking round with some
anxiety, to see who was in the room behind
her. No one was there when he entered and
sate down. But, in a minute or two, a tall,
thin young lady with great, sad eyes, and
pale cheeks, came from the inner-room, and,
seeing him, retired. 'It is Mademoiselle
Cannes,' said Madame Babette, rather
unnecessarily; for, if he had not been on the
watch for some sign of Mademoiselle de
Créquy, he would hardly have noticed the
entrance and withdrawal.

"Clement and the good old gardener were
always rather perplexed by Madame Babette's
evident avoidance of all mention of the
De Créquy family. If she were so much
interested in one member as to be willing
to undergo the pains and penalties of a
domiciliary visit, it was strange that she
never inquired after the existence of her
charge's friends and relations from one who
might very probably have heard something
of them. They settled that Madame Babette
must believe that the Marquise and
Clément were dead; and admired her for her
reticence in never speaking of Virginie.
The truth was, I suspect, that she was so
desirous of her nephew's success by this
time, that she did not like letting any one
into the secret of Virginie's whereabouts
who might interfere with their plan. However,
it was arranged between Clément and
his humble friend that the former, dressed in
the peasant's clothes in which he had entered
Paris, but smartened up in one or two
particulars, as if, although a countryman, he had
money to spare, should go and engage a
sleeping-room in the old Bréton Inn; where,
as I told you, accommodation for the night
was to be had. This was accordingly done
without exciting Madame Babette's
suspicions, for she was unacquainted with the
Normandy accent, and consequently did not
perceive the exaggeration of it which Monsieur
de Créquy adopted in order to disguise his
pure Parisian. But after he had for two
nights slept in a queer, dark closet at the
end of one of the numerous short galleries in
the Hôtel Duguesclin, and paid his money
for such accommodation each morning at the
little bureau under the window of the
concièrgerie, he found himself no nearer to his
object. He stood outside in the gateway:
Madame Babette opened a pane in her window,
counted out the change, gave polite
thanks, and shut to the pane with a clack,
before he could ever find out what to say
that might be the means of opening a
conversation. Once in the streets he was in
danger from the blood-thirsty mob, who
were ready in those days to hunt to death
every one who looked like a gentleman as
an aristocrat: and Clément, depend upon it,
looked a gentleman, whatever dress he wore.
Yet it was unwise to traverse Paris to his
old friend the gardener's grénier, so he had
to loiter about, where I hardly know. Only
he did leave the Hôtel Duguesclin, and he did
not go to old Jacques, and there was not
another house in Paris open to him. At the
end of two days he had made out Pierre's
existence; and he began to try to make
friends with the lad. Pierre was too sharp
and shrewd not to suspect something from
the confused attempts at friendliness. It
was not for nothing that the Norman farmer
lounged in the court and door-way, and
brought home presents of galette. Pierre
accepted the galette, reciprocated the civil
speeches, but kept his eyes open. Once,
returning home pretty late at night, he
surprised the Norman studying the shadows on
the blind, which was drawn down when
Madame Babette's lamp was lighted. On
going in he found Mademoiselle Cannes with
his mother sitting by the table, and helping
in the family mending.

"Pierre was afraid that the Norman had
some view upon the money which his mother
as concièrge collected for her brother. But
the money was all safe next evening when
his cousin, Monsieur Morin fils, came to
collect it. Madame Babette asked her nephew
to sit down, and skilfully barred the passage
to the inner door, so that Virginie, had she
been ever so much disposed, could not have
retreated. She sate silently sewing. All at
once the little party were startled by a very
sweet tenor voice, just close to the street
window, singing one of the airs out of
Beaumarchais' operas, which, a few years before,
had been popular all over Paris. But after
a few moments of silence, and one or two
remarks, the talking went on again. But
Pierre noticed an increased air of abstraction
in Virginie, who, I suppose, was recurring to
the last time that she had heard the song, and
did not consider, as her cousin had hoped she
would have done, what were the words set
to the air, which he was in hopes she would