Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/59

 but neither the housekeeper, nor Zélie, nor anybody could fathom the reason for this moderate expenditure; Minoret, who was much regretted in his neighborhood, was one of the most benevolent men in Paris, and, like Larrey, kept his charitable acts a profound secret. It was therefore with keen satisfaction that the heirs saw the arrival of the rich upholstery and the large library of their uncle, already an officer of the Legion of Honor, and appointed by the King chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel, perhaps on account of his retirement which made way for some favorite. But, when the architect, the painters, and the upholsterers had arranged all in the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame Minoret-Levrault, who was superintending the upholsterer and the architect as if it were a question of her own fortune, learnt, through the indiscretion of a young man sent down to arrange the library, that the doctor took care of an orphan called Ursule. This news made wild havoc in the town of Nemours. The old man at last came home toward the middle of the month of January, 1815, and secretly installed himself with a little girl of ten months, accompanied by a wet-nurse.

“Ursule cannot be his daughter, he is seventy-one years old!” said the alarmed heirs.

“Whatever she may be,” said Madame Massin, “she will give us plenty of worry!”

The doctor gave a somewhat cold reception to his great-niece on the maternal side, whose husband had just bought the clerkship of the justice of the peace,