.

A DOMICILIARY VISIT.
The mayor, a former huntsman of the house of Simeuse, came occasionally to the chateau, where the d'Hauteserres showed him out of policy, a deference to which he attached great value.

His name was Goulard; he had married a rich woman of Troyes, whose property, which was in the commune of Cinq-Cygne, he had further increased by the purchase of a fine abbey and its lands, in which he invested all his savings.

The vast abbey of Val-des-Preux, standing about a mile from the chateau, he had turned into a dwelling that was almost as splendid as Gondreville; in it his wife and he were now living like rats in a cathedral.

"Ah! Goulard, you have been greedy," Mademoiselle had said to him with a laugh the first time she received him at Cinq-Cygne.