This, and no more, had Madame Bouïsse to tell. I had sought her in her own little retreat at the foot of the public staircase. It was a very wet afternoon, and under pretext of drying my boots by the fire, I stayed to make conversation and elicit what information I could. Now Madame Bouïsse's sanctuary was a queer, dark, stuffy little cupboard devoted to many heterogeneous uses, and it "served her for parlor, kitchen, and all." In one corner stood that famous article of furniture which became "a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." Adjoining the bed was the fireplace; near the fireplace stood a corner cupboard filled with crockery and surmounted by a grand ormolu clock, singularly at variance with the rest of the articles. A table, a warming-pan, and a couple of chairs completed the furniture of the room, which, with all its contents, could scarcely have measured more than eight feet square. On a shelf inside the door stood thirty flat candlesticks; and on a row of nails just beneath them, hung two and twenty bright brass chamber-door keys--whereby an apt arithmetician might have divined that exactly two-and-twenty lodgers were out in the rain, and only eight housed comfortably within doors. "And how old should you suppose this lady to be?" I asked, leaning idly against the table whereon Madame Bouïsse was preparing an unsavory dish of veal and garlic. The _concierge_ shrugged her ponderous shoulders. "Ah, bah, M'sieur, I am no judge of age," said she. "Well--is she pretty?" "I am no judge of beauty, either," grinned Madame Bouïsse. "But, my dear soul," I expostulated, "you have eyes!" "Yours are younger than mine, _mon enfant_," retorted the fat _concierge_; "and, as I see Mam'selle Hortense coming up to the door, I'd advise you to make use of them for yourself." And there, sure enough, was a tall and slender girl, dressed all in black, pausing to close up her umbrella at the threshold of the outer doorway. A porter followed her, carrying a heavy parcel. Having deposited this in the passage, he touched his cap and stated his charge. The young lady took out her purse, turned over the coins, shook her head, and finally came up to Madame's little sanctuary. "Will you be so obliging, Madame Bouïsse," she said, "as to lend me a piece of ten sous? I have no small change left in my purse." How shall I describe her? If I say that she was not particularly beautiful, I do her less than justice; for she was beautiful, with a pale, grave, serious beauty, unlike the ordinary beauty of woman. But even this, her beauty of feature, and color, and form, was eclipsed and overborne by that "true beauty of the soul" which outshines all other, as the sun puts out the stars. There was in her face--or, perhaps, rather in her expression--an indefinable something that came upon me almost like a memory. Had I seen that face in some forgotten dream of long ago? Brown-haired was she, and pale, with a brow "as chaste ice, as pure as snow," and eyes--