Madame Bourcet returned punctually at two o'clock, and as the weather had become bad, she and Fifi spent the afternoon together in the snuff-*colored drawing-room.
When eight o'clock in the evening arrived, Louis Bourcet, as usual, appeared. He had news to communicate, and gave a fearful and wonderful account of the proceedings at the banking-house, in which it was represented that a mysterious old lady, with a basket and a limp, had appeared, and had either stolen ninety thousand francs, or given ninety thousand francs to the fund for the soldiers' orphans, nobody outside of the bank knew exactly which. The excitement in the neighborhood of the bank had been tremendous, and such a crowd had collected that the gens d'armes had been compelled to charge in order to clear the street. The basket had been found, but the limp, along with the old lady, had vanished.
All sorts of stories were flying about concerning the affair, some people declaring that the troops from the nearest barracks had been ordered out, a cordon placed around the banking-house, and the mysterious old lady was nothing less than a determined ruffian, who had disguised himself as an old
