She usually occupied the drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and the sweetest and bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the windows which overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view of the square in front of the Sub-Prefecture.

That was the paradise of her dreams.

That little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses, seemed to her a Garden of Eden.

She would have given ten years of her life to possess one of those habitations.

The house at the left-hand corner, in which the receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted her.