The old woman did not hear the last words, for with quick and firm step she had been making her way up the six flights of stairs, steep enough to make her head reel had she been ascending them for the first time. "Nine o'clock!--nine o'clock! How uneasy she must be!" and as she spoke, she opened with her latch-key the door of a wretched garret, in which dimly burned a rushlight, whose flickering flame scarcely seemed to render visible the scanty furniture the room contained. "Is that you, my good Margaret," said a feeble and broken voice from the farther end of the little apartment. "Yes, my dear lady; yes, it is I; and very sorry I am to have made you uneasy. But Madame Lebriton, my worthy employer, is so active herself, that she always finds the work-woman's day too short--though it is good twelve hours--and just as I was going to fold up my work, she brought me a job in a great hurry. I could not refuse her; but this time, I must own, I got well paid for being obliging, for after I had done, she said in her most good-natured way: 'Here, you shall take home with you some of this nice pie, and this bottle of good wine, and have a comfortable supper with your sister.' So she always calls you, madame," added Margaret, while complacently glancing at the basket, the contents of which she now laid out upon the table. "As I believe it is safest for you, I do not undeceive her, though it is easily known she can not have looked very close at us, or she might have seen that I could only be the servant of so noble-looking a lady--" The feeble voice interrupted her: "My servant--you my servant! when, instead of rewarding your services, I allow you to toil for my support, and to lavish upon me the most tender, the moat devoted affection! My poor Margaret! you who have undertaken for me at your age, and with your infirmities, daily and arduous toil, are you not indeed a sister of whom I may well be proud? Your nobility has a higher origin than mine. Reduced by political changes, which have left me homeless and penniless, I owe every thing to you; and so tenderly do you minister to me, that even in this garret I could still almost fancy myself the noble Abbess of Vatteville!"