It was a narrow one, consisting of a ground-floor and two floors above, in the Rue Belle-Normande.

The maid, Josephine, a girl of nineteen, a rustic servant-of-all-work at low wages, gifted to excess with the startled animal expression of a peasant, opened the door, went up stairs at her master's heels to the drawing-room, which was on the first floor, and then said: "A gentleman called--three times." Old Roland, who never spoke to her without shouting and swearing, cried out: "Who do you say called, in the devil's name ?" She never winced at her master's roaring voice, and replied: "A gentleman from the lawyer's." "What lawyer ?" "Why, M'sieu 'Canu--who else ?" "And what did this gentleman say ?" "That M'sieu 'Canu will call in himself in the course of the evening." Maitre Lecanu was M.Roland's lawyer, and in a way his friend, managing his business for him.

For him to send word that he would call in the evening, something urgent and important must be in the wind; and the four Rolands looked at each other, disturbed by the announcement as folks of small fortune are wont to be at any intervention of a lawyer, with its suggestions of contracts, inheritance, lawsuits--all sorts of desirable or formidable contingencies.

The father, after a few moments of silence, muttered: "What on earth can it mean ?" Mme.

Rosemilly began to laugh.
"Why, a legacy, of course.