housses, Aspirated h ; no liaison

13. usé, ‘ worn.’ Notice the uses of user: 1. Transitive ; (a) To ‘ use up,’ ‘ consume ; ’ e.g. j'ai usé tout le beurre, (b) To ‘ wear out,’ as here. 2. Intransitive, with genitive ; (a) To ‘ make use of,’ ‘ employ ; ’ il n'use pas de ses droits, (b) En user bien (or mal) avec . . . ‘ to behave well (or badly) towards. . . .*

19. grand'mère. So grand'messe, etc. French adjectives derived from Latin adjectives witli only one termination for masculine and féminine had but one form for masculine and féminine in Old Frcnch (therefore grand mère). The seventeenth-century grammarians in ignorance inserted the apostrophe to represent an e, as they thought, omitted.

25. monsieur, lit. ‘ the gentleman.’ As that would be vulgar in English, say ‘ M. de Yineuil.’

La Cigale chez les Fourmis.

31. de Biesener, ‘A fine Chippendale,* as we should say. Riesener (born 1735) was a great designer of artistio furniture in the reigns of Louis Quinze and Louis Seize.

1. G^est que vraiment, etc. Say ‘ In fact, this little drawing* room bas capabilities.*