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SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS.
On a Wednesday morning, early, toward the middle of spring, in the year 16,--such was his mode of reckoning,--at the moment when the chevalier was putting on his old green-flowered damask dressing-gown, he heard, despite the cotton in his ears, the light step of a young girl who was running up the stairway.

Presently three taps were discreetly struck upon the door; then, without waiting for any response, a handsome girl slipped like an eel into the room occupied by the old bachelor.
"Ah! is it you, Suzanne ?" said the Chevalier de Valois, without discontinuing his occupation, which was that of stropping his razor.
"What have you come for, my dear little jewel of mischief ?" "I have come to tell you something which may perhaps give you as much pleasure as pain ?" "Is it anything about Cesarine ?" "Cesarine! much I care about your Cesarine!" she said with a saucy air, half serious, half indifferent.
This charming Suzanne, whose present comical performance was to exercise a great influence in the principal personages of our history, was a work-girl at Madame Lardot's.

One word here on the topography of the house.

The wash-rooms occupied the whole of the ground floor.