was approaching, and the town by degrees
became filled with merchants from every
part of France whose commodities were to
be exposed for sale ; but chiefly the proprietors
of whole troops of diminutive Norman
horses and ponies intended for sale came
pouring in from the towns and villages; all
these required domiciles, and the Hôtel des
Carmes had always been the favourite resort
of most of them, owing to its central position.
Application was made to me to give up my
large chamber to claimants who were
content to sleep four in a room rather than
forego the convenience of the house to which
they were accustomed, and whose table d'hôte
had a good reputation. I resisted for some
time, much to the annoyance of an ugly
chambermaid and an insinuating waiter,
until, one morning, I was suddenly favoured
by a visit from the smart daughter of my
landlady in person, who, dressed with even
more brilliancy than usual and arrayed in
her most winning smiles, came to expostulate
with me on the want of consideration I
displayed in preferring my own comfort to that
of the estimable horsedealers, whose right it
had long been to take up their abode beneath
her roof. " Madame," she remarked, " can
have another room infinitely more suitable to
her, out of the noise and bustle of the
street, and where her studies will be less
interrupted : it is at the other side of the court
looking into the charming garden which
gives a view of the Palais de Justice, and
offers many advantages of air and light. It
is all that remains," continued the fair Léonie,
with an arch look, " of the convent garden ;
and Madame, who is fond of antiquities, will
not object, as most persons do, that it is dull
and retired."

This last argument was conclusive, and I
at once agreed to the fair Léonie's proposition
of following her to look at the offered chamber,
which I was to have in exchange for the
one coveted by the more favoured horsedealers
of the Fair.

Through a series of rooms so numerous
that I thought I should never get to the end
of them, Léonie tripped, jingling the keys
with which she opened one after another,
informing me that every one would be
tenanted in a few hours. I followed,
wondering where the journey would finish,
when she turned suddenly down a narrow
dark passage, and, mounting a little stair,
emerged into an upper wooden gallery which
ran along outside the house above a court
yard, and presently arrived at a low doorway,
giving entrance to a second passage darker
than the first. Léonie, after descending a
few stairs, stopped at a small portal at the
end of this passage, and, turning the key in
the rusty lock, threw open the door of a
chamber— long, narrow, and meagrely
furnished — which, however, looked rather cheerful
as a blaze of sunshine seemed suddenly to
have darted into it from a high church-like
window at the extremity, to which she at
once advanced ; and, opening it to the fullest
extent, exclaimed, " See what a charming
prospect Madame will have from the chapel-
room, as we call this pièce."

I was obliged to confess that there was
something attractive about the appearance of
the garden below, neglected though it was.
Far above the level of the street we had left
on the other side, it could be reached from
this room by a flight of stone steps descending
from the window.

The sun was glittering on dripping trees
and flowers grouped around a broken fountain
in the middle of this hanging garden, into
which no windows besides this one looked, for,
on one side was the blank wall of a sugar-
refinery, and on the other were the striped
gables of several ancient houses whose fronts
looked into the narrow Rue des Fosses. The
garden-wall partly shut out the opposite hovels
and only allowed the mysteries of their upper
stories to be seen, where rickety balconies
high in air hung from black windows
supporting pots of flowers and bird-cages, in the
midst of rags hung out to dry. Several spires
of churches with delicate tracery, peered
above the roofs of distant manufactories, whose
high, singularly-shaped chimneys formed
grotesque figures against the sky; some lofty
trees, growing in the gardens attached to some
of the numerous houses, broke the lines of
buildings rather gracefully; and, towering
over one mass of spreading foliage, the
beautiful lacework of the parapet of that
portion of the Palais de Justice built by
George d'Amboise, the minister of Louis
the Twelfth, and the small ornamented
pinnacles which, surmount it, finished the
prospect.

I did not disagree with Mademoiselle
Léonie when she insisted that the position
of this secluded chamber was in its favour;
and to my objections that the floor was paved
with dingy red brick and had no carpet —
and that there were no curtains to the two
windows, one of immense size, and one small
— she replied, that an hour would remedy all
defects, and make it a very pattern of
comfortable.

"Look," she added, " what fine cupboards
you have too! This one alone is large
enough for all your trunks and books. And
into this you could even move the bed itself,
if you pleased."

It was quite true that the closets were
singularly large, dark, and lofty, and that their
hinges creaked dismally as they were thrown
open for my inspection.

"Really," continued Léonie, seeing that I
appeared tolerably satisfied, " I do not know
that we are right in giving up so convenient
a chamber when the house is about to be so
full, but, to oblige Madame, we will not be
particular."

However bright this model of a room
might have looked when I first visited it, it