Few Bretons came near it now, and the inn had fallen into the hands of Madame Babette's brother, as payment for a bad wine debt of the last proprietor.

He put his sister and her child in, to keep it open, as it were, and sent all the people he could to occupy the half- furnished rooms of the house.

They paid Babette for their lodging every morning as they went out to breakfast, and returned or not as they chose, at night.

Every three days, the wine-merchant or his son came to Madame Babette, and she accounted to them for the money she had received.

She and her child occupied the porter's office (in which the lad slept at nights) and a little miserable bed-room which opened out of it, and received all the light and air that was admitted through the door of communication, which was half glass.