So saying, light as a bird, Rigolette descended the staircase, followed by Rodolph, who went into his own room to brush off the dust which had settled on him in M. Pipelet's garret. We will hereafter disclose how it was that Rodolph was not informed of the carrying off of Fleur-de-Marie from the farm at Bouqueval, and why he had not visited the Morels the day after his conversation with Madame d'Harville. Rodolph, furnished, by way of saving appearances, with a thick roll of papers, entered Rigolette's chamber. Rigolette was nearly the same age as Goualeuse, her old prison acquaintance. There was between these two young girls the same difference that there is between laughter and tears; between joyous light-heartedness and melancholy dejection; between the wildest thoughtlessness and a dark and constant reflection on the future; between a delicate, refined, elevated, poetic nature, exquisitely sensitive, and incurably wounded by remorse, and a gay, lively, happy, good, and compassionate nature. Rigolette had no sorrows but those derived from the woes of others, and with these she sympathised with all her might, devoting herself, body and soul, to any suffering fellow creature; but, her back turned on them, to use a common expression, she thought no more about them. She often checked her bursts of laughter by a flood of tears, and then checked her tears by renewing her laughter. Like a real Parisian, Rigolette preferred excitement to calm, and motion to repose; the loud and echoing harmony of the orchestra at the fête of the Chartreuse or the Colysée to the soft murmurs of the breeze, waters, and leaves; the bustling disturbance of the thoroughfares of Paris to the silent solitude of the fields; the brilliancy of fireworks, the flaring of the grand finale, the uproar of the maroons and Roman candles, to the serenity of a lovely night,--starlight, clear, and still. Alas, yes! the dear, good little girl actually preferred the pavement of the streets of the capital to the fresh moss of the shaded paths, perfumed with violets; the dust of the Boulevards to the waving of the ears of corn, mingled with the scarlet of the wild poppies and the azure of the bluebells. Rigolette only left her chamber on Sundays, and each morning to provide her prescribed allowance of chickweed, bread, milk, and millet, for herself and her two birds, as Madame Pipelet observed; but she lived in Paris for Paris, and would have been wretched to have resided anywhere but in the capital. A few words as to the personal appearance of the grisette, and we will then introduce Rodolph into the chamber of his neighbour.