But the next day at twelve o’clock she received a summons, and the sight of the stamped paper, on which appeared several times in large letters, “Maître Hareng, bailiff at Buchy,” so frightened her that she rushed in hot haste to the linendraper’s. She found him in his shop, doing up a parcel.

“Your obedient!” he said; “I am at your service.”

But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, helped by a young girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunchbacked, who was at once his clerk and his servant.