"I assure you, madame, that there is no more. But if madame will remember all that she has spent, she will understand that there can hardly be any more.--In the first place, we paid the dressmaker one hundred and twenty-three francs, then the grocer ten francs, and after that fifty more, because he came and made a row." "That is true; it is hateful to have to give so much money to those people." "And then, madame bought that lovely hat that she wore yesterday--sixty francs, I believe." "Yes, and that was none too much." "And then madame bought that superb silk dress with the figured flounces--one hundred and twenty francs, I believe----" "Yes, it was as cheap as dirt!" "All these make nearly four hundred francs; and then there were purchases at the perfumer's, gloves, and so forth; and then, we have had to live. So madame sees that she can hardly have more than twenty francs left." "That is true. Mon Dieu! how the money goes! somebody ought to invent something else, of which one could have more. Well, I must not hesitate any longer; whatever the course of the market, I must sell my Mouzaias!" Madame de Grangeville ordered her last resources sold; the securities that had cost her two thousand francs produced barely nine hundred. With that sum the baroness's household went on for some time; but as she still had many debts and the creditors became threatening, it was necessary to give them something on account; and with her mania for gratifying all her fancies, Madame de Grangeville was incapable of economizing. The result was that the end soon came of the proceeds of the Mouzaias, and then she was obliged to forego gratifying her caprices; then she was compelled, in spite of herself, to reflect, to think of the future; and that was appalling for that woman, who had never known how to occupy her time, even in those kinds of work which well-born women do not disdain, and which become a resource when adversity succeeds cloudless days. Madame de Grangeville was obliged constantly to send to the Mont-de-Piete some article of clothing or some jewel, in order to obtain money. She was surprised at the very small amounts which they advanced on these objects, but Mademoiselle Lizida, who became much less amiable as the resources diminished, did not scruple to say to her mistress: "Perhaps madame thinks that they will lend her what these cost! madame imagines that the frippery for which she has paid so much has some value. Not much! for example, a bonnet or a hat that madame paid forty francs for at the Temple, they will advance fifteen sous on. And the trouble is that madame bought such things so often; that is what ruined us." "But that silk dress that you carried to-day to pawn, Lizida, is not frippery; it is one I bought to go to the Glumeaus' at Nogent--about two months ago; it isn't worn at all, and it cost me one hundred and twenty francs."