dwelling more in keeping with the splendor of his own abode, and he
reconstructed it on the model of an ornamental" target="_blank" title="a.装饰的 n.装饰品">ornamentalcottage. He divided

this cottage from his own lawn, which was bordered and set with
flower-beds and formed the terrace of his villa, by a low wall along

which he planted a concealing hedge. Behind the cottage (called, in
spite of all his efforts to prevent it, the Chalet) were the orchards

and kitchen gardens of the villa. The Chalet, without cows or dairy,
is separated from the roadway by a wooden fence whose palings are

hidden under a luxuriant hedge. On the other side of the road the
opposite house, subject to a legal privilege, has a similar hedge and

paling, so as to leave an unobstructed view of Havre to the Chalet.
This little dwelling was the torment of the present proprietor of the

villa, Monsieur Vilquin; and here is the why and the wherefore. The
original creator of the villa, whose sumptuous details cry aloud,

"Behold our millions!" extended his park far into the country for the
purpose, as he averred, of getting his gardeners out of his pockets;

and so, when the Chalet was finished, none but a friend could be
allowed to inhabit it. Monsieur Mignon, the next owner of the

property, was very much attached to his cashier, Dumay, and the
following history will prove that the attachment was mutual; to him

therefore he offered the little dwelling. Dumay, a stickler for legal
methods, insisted on signing a lease for three hundred francs for

twelve years, and Monsieur Mignon willingly agreed, remarking,--
"My dear Dumay, remember, you have now bound yourself to live with me

for twelve years."
In consequence of certain events which will presently be related, the

estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in Havre,
were sold to Vilquin, one of his business competitors. In his joy at

getting possession of the celebrated villa Mignon, the latter forgot
to demand the cancelling of the lease. Dumay, anxious not to hinder

the sale, would have signed anything Vilquin required, but the sale
once made, he held to his lease like a vengeance. And there he

remained, in Vilquin's pocket as it were; at the heart of Vilquin's
family life, observing Vilquin, irritating Vilquin,--in short, the

gadfly of all the Vilquins. Every morning, when he looked out of his
window, Vilquin felt a violent shock of annoyance as his eye lighted

on the little gem of a building, the Chalet, which had cost sixty
thousand francs and sparkled like a ruby in the sun. That comparison

is very nearly exact. The architect has constructed the cottage of
brilliant red brick pointed with white. The window-frames are painted

of a lively green, the woodwork is brown verging on yellow. The roof
overhangs by several feet. A pretty gallery, with open-worked

balustrade, surmounts the lower floor and projects at the centre of
the facade into a veranda with glass sides. The ground-floor has a

charming salon and a dining-room, separated from each other by the
landing of a staircase built of wood, designed and decorated with

elegantsimplicity. The kitchen is behind the dining-room, and the
corresponding room back of the salon, formerly a study, is now the

bedroom of Monsieur and Madame Dumay. On the upper floor the architect
has managed to get two large bedrooms, each with a dressing-room, to

which the veranda serves as a salon; and above this floor, under the
eaves, which are tipped together like a couple of cards, are two

servants' rooms with mansard roofs, each lighted by a circular window
and tolerably spacious.

Vilquin has been petty enough to build a high wall on the side toward
the orchard and kitchen garden; and in consequence of this piece of

spite, the few square feet which the lease secured to the Chalet
resembled a Parisian garden. The out-buildings, painted in keeping

with the cottage, stood with their backs to the wall of the adjoining
property.

The interior of this charmingdwelling harmonized with its exterior.
The salon, floored entirely with iron-wood, was painted in a style

that suggested the beauties of Chinese lacquer. On black panels edged
with gold, birds of every color, foliage of impossible greens, and

fantastic oriental designs glowed and shimmered. The dining-room was
entirely sheathed in Northern woods carved and cut in open-work like

the beautiful Russian chalets. The little antechamber formed by the
landing and the well of the staircase was painted in old oak to

represent Gothic ornament. The bedrooms, hung with chintz, were
charming in their costlysimplicity. The study, where the cashier and

his wife now slept, was panelled from top to bottom, on the walls and
ceiling, like the cabin of a steamboat. These luxuries of his

predecessor excited Vilquin's wrath. He would fain have lodged his
daughter and her husband in the cottage. This desire, well known to

Dumay, will presently serve to illustrate the Breton obstinacy of the
latter.

The entrance to the Chalet is by a little trellised iron door, the
uprights of which, ending in lance-heads, show for a few inches above

the fence and its hedge. The little garden, about as wide as the more
pretentious lawn, was just now filled with flowers, roses, and dahlias

of the choicest kind, and many rare products of the hot-houses, for
(another Vilquinard grievance) the elegant little hot-house, a very

whim of a hot-house, a hot-house representing dignity and style,
belonged to the Chalet, and separated, or if you prefer, united it to

the villa Vilquin. Dumay consoled himself for the toils of business in
taking care of this hot-house, whose exotic treasures were one of

Modeste's joys. The billiard-room of the villa Vilquin, a species of
gallery, formerly communicated through an immense aviary with this

hot-house. But after the building of the wall which deprived him of a
view into the orchards, Dumay bricked up the door of communication.

"Wall for wall!" he said.
In 1827 Vilquin offered Dumay a salary of six thousand francs, and ten

thousand more as indemnity, if he would give up the lease. The cashier
refused; though he had but three thousand francs from Gobenheim, a

former clerk of his master. Dumay was a Breton transplanted by fate
into Normandy. Imagine therefore the hatred conceived for the tenants

of the Chalet by the Norman Vilquin, a man worth three millions! What
criminal leze-million on the part of a cashier, to hold up to the eyes

of such a man the impotence of his wealth! Vilquin, whose desperation
in the matter made him the talk of Havre, had just proposed to give

Dumay a pretty house of his own, and had again been refused. Havre
itself began to grow uneasy at the man's obstinacy, and a good many

persons explained it by the phrase, "Dumay is a Breton." As for the
cashier, he thought Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon would be ill-lodged

elsewhere. His two idols now inhabited a templeworthy of them; the
sumptuous little cottage gave them a home, where these dethroned

royalties could keep the semblance of majesty about them,--a species
of dignity usually denied to those who have seen better days.

Perhaps as the story goes on, the reader will not regret having
learned in advance a few particulars as to the home and the habitual

companions of Modeste Mignon, for, at her age, people and things have
as much influence upon the future life as a person's own character,--

indeed, character often receives ineffaceable impressions from its
surroundings.

CHAPTER II
A PORTRAIT FROM LIFE

From the manner with which the Latournelles entered the Chalet a
stranger would readily have guessed that they came there every

evening.
"Ah, you are here already," said the notary, perceiving the young

banker Gobenheim, a connection of Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the
great banking house in Paris.

This young man with a livid face--a blonde of the type with black
eyes, whose immovable glance has an indescribablefascination, sober

in speech as in conduct, dressed in black, lean as a consumptive, but
neverthelessvigorously framed--visited the family of his former

master and the house of his cashier less from affection than from
self-interest. Here they played whist at two sous a point; a dress-

coat was not required; he accepted no refreshment except "eau sucree,"
and consequently had no civilities to return. This apparent devotion

to the Mignon family allowed it to be supposed that Gobenheim had a
heart; it also released him from the necessity of going into the

society of Havre and incurring useless expenses, thus upsetting the
orderly economy of his domestic life. This disciple of the golden calf

went to bed at half-past ten o'clock and got up at five in the
morning. Moreover, being perfectly sure of Latournelle's and Butscha's

discretion, he could talk over difficult business matters, obtain the
advice of the notary gratis, and get an inkling of the real truth of

the gossip of the street. This stolid gold-glutton (the epithet is
Butscha's) belonged by nature to the class of substances which

chemistry terms absorbents. Ever since the catastrophe of the house of
Mignon, where the Kellers had placed him to learn the principles of

maritime commerce, no one at the Chalet had ever asked him to do the
smallest thing, no matter what; his reply was too well known. The

young fellow looked at Modeste precisely as he would have looked at a
cheap lithograph.