“Monsieur Mouillard, I wish you a Happy New Year, good health, and Heaven to end your days.”  She had just said the same to the tenants on the first, second, and third floors.  My answer was the same as theirs.  I slipped into her palm (with a “Many thanks!” of which she took no notice) a piece of gold, which brought another smile, a curtsey, and she is gone.

This smile comes only once a year; it is not reproduced at any other period, but is a dividend payable in one instalment.  This, and a tear on All Souls’ Day, when she has been to place a bunch of chrysanthemums on her baby’s grave, are the only manifestations of sensibility that I have discovered in her.  From the second of January to the second of November she is a human creature tied to a bell-rope, with an immovably stolid face and a monosyllabic vocabulary in which politer terms occur but sparsely.

This morning, contrary to her habits, she has brought up by post two letters; one from my Uncle Mouillard (an answer), and the other—­I don’t recognize the other.  Let’s open it first:  big envelope, ill-written address, Paris postmark.  Hallo! a smaller envelope inside, and on it: 

          Antoineand Marie Plumet.

Poor souls! they have no visiting-cards.  But kind hearts are more than pasteboard.

Ten months ago little Madame Plumet, then still unmarried, was in a terrible bother.  I remember our first meeting, on a March day, at the corner of the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue Richelieu.  I was walking along quickly, with a bundle of papers under my arm, on my way back to the office where I was head clerk.  Suddenly a dressmaker’s errand-girl set down her great oilcloth-covered box in my way.  I nearly went head first over it, and was preparing to walk around it, when the little woman, red with haste and blushes, addressed me.  “Excuse me, sir, are you a lawyer?”

“No, Mademoiselle, not yet.”

“Perhaps, sir, you know some lawyers?”

“To be sure I do; my master, to begin with, Counsellor Boule.  He is quite close, if you care to follow me.”

“I am in a terrible hurry, but I can spare a minute or two.  Thank you very much, Monsieur.”

And thus I found myself escorted by a small dressmaker and a box of fashions.  I remember that I walked a little ahead for fear of being seen in such company by a fellow-clerk, which would have damaged my reputation.

We got to the office.  Down went the box again.  The little dressmaker told me that she was engaged to M. Plumet, frame-maker.  She told her tale very clearly; a little money put by, you see, out of ten years’ wages; one may be careful and yet be taken in; and, alas! all has been lent to a cousin in the cabinetmaking trade, who wanted to set up shop; and now he refuses to pay up.  The dowry is in danger, and the marriage in suspense.

“Do not be alarmed, Mademoiselle; we will summons this atrocious cabinet-maker, and get a judgment against him.  We shall not let him go until he has disgorged, and you shall be Madame Plumet.”