"Comfortable! Yes, I will at once set about it, and with pleasure." "Dear me! here is another difficulty. Don't you see we are not told whether to expect a lady or a gentleman? Madame de Lucenay, in her letter, only says 'a person.' It is very perplexing, isn't it?" "Then make your preparations as if for a lady, my dear Madame Dubreuil; and, should it turn out a gentleman, why he will only have better reason to be pleased with his accommodations." "Quite right; right again, as you always are." A servant here announced that breakfast was ready. "Let breakfast wait a little," said Madame Georges. "And, while I draw out the necessary list, send some person you can depend upon to take the exact height and width of the three rooms, that the curtains and carpets may more easily be prepared." "Thank you. I will set our overseer to work out this commission." "Madame," continued the servant, speaking to her mistress, "the new dairy-woman from Stains is here with her few goods in a small cart drawn by a donkey. The beast has not a heavy load to complain of, for the poor body's luggage seems but very trifling." "Poor woman!" said Madame Dubreuil, kindly. "What woman is it?" inquired Madame Georges. "A poor creature from Stains, who once had four cows of her own, and used to go every morning to Paris to sell her milk. Her husband was a blacksmith, and one day accompanied her to Paris to purchase some iron he required for his work, agreeing to rejoin her at the corner of the street where she was accustomed to sell her milk. Unhappily, as it afterwards turned out, the poor woman had selected a very bad part of Paris; for, when her husband returned, he found her in the midst of a set of wicked, drunken fellows, who had, for mere mischief's sake, upset all her milk into the gutter. The poor blacksmith tried to reason with them upon the score of their unfair conduct, but that only made matters worse; they all fell on the husband, who sought in vain to defend himself from their violence. The end of the story is, that, in the scuffle which ensued, the man received a stab with a knife, which stretched him a corpse before the eyes of his distracted wife." "Dreadful, indeed!" ejaculated Madame Georges. "But, at least, the murderer was apprehended?"