old abbe blowing his fire with an air-cane made in the days when air-
canes were the fashion,--a fashion which was no doubt introduced by
some courtier of the reign of Henri III. At last, about a month before
her death, the housekeeper, after a dinner at which the Abbe Mouchon,
the Niseron family, and the curate of Soulanges were present, returned
to her jeremiades about the loss of the bellows.

"Why! they've been these two weeks in Arsene's bed!" cried the little
one, with a peal of laughter. "Great lazy thing! if she had taken the
trouble to make her bed she would have found them."

As it was 1791 everybody laughed; but a dead silence succeeded the
laugh.

"There is nothing laughable in that," said the housekeeper; "since I
have been ill Arsene sleeps in my room."

In spite of this explanation the Abbe Niseron looked thunderbolts at
Madame Niseron and his nephew, thinking they were plotting mischief
against him. The housekeeper died. Rigou contrived to work up the
abbe's resentment to such a pitch that he made a will disinheriting
Jean-Francois Niseron in favor of Arsene Pichard.

In 1823 Rigou, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude, still blew the
fire with an air-cane, and left the bellows hanging to the screw.

Madame Niseron, idolizing her daughter, did not long survive her.
Mother and child died in 1794. The old abbe, too, was dead, and
citizen Rigou took charge of Arsene's affairs by marrying her. A
former convert in the monastery, attached to Rigou as a dog is to his