ious house it was, indeed,
shrinking from the public gaze, even its slated roof invisible. Its
entrance was on the other side, upon the village street, a narrow
winding street between dead-walls, without a shop, without even a window
to enliven it. The small garden in the rear, among the sparse dwellings
that environed it, was like an island of dense verdure. And across the
road he noticed a spacious courtyard, surrounded by sheds and stables,
crowded with a countless train of carriages and baggage-wagons, among
which men and horses, coming and going, kept up an unceasing bustle.

"Are those all for the service of the Emperor?" he inquired, meaning to
say something humorous to the girl, who was laying a snow-white cloth
upon the table.

"Yes, for the Emperor himself, and no one else!" she pleasantly replied,
glad of a chance to show her white teeth once more; and then she went on
to enumerate the suite from information that she had probably received
from the stablemen, who had been coming to the inn to drink since the
preceding day; there were the staff, comprising twenty-five officers,
the sixty cent-gardes and the half-troop of guides for escort duty, the
six gendarmes of the provost-guard; then the household, seventy-three
persons in all, chamberlains, attendants for the table and the bedroom,
cooks and scullions; then four saddle-horses and two carriages for the
Emperor's personal use, ten horses for the equerries, eight for the
grooms and outriders, not mentioning forty-seven post-horses; then a
_char a banc_ and twelve baggage wagons, two of which, appropriated
to the cooks, had particularly excited her admiration by reason of
the number and variety of the utensils they contained, all in the most
splendid order.

"Oh, sir, you never saw such stew-pans! they shone like silver. And all
sorts of dishes, and jars and jugs, and lots of things of which it would
puzzle me to tell the use! And a cellar of wine, claret, burgundy, and
champagne--yes! enough to supply a wedding feast."

The unusual luxury of the snowy table-cloth and the white wine sparkling
in his glass sharpened Maurice's appetite; he devoured his two poached
eggs with a zest that made him fear he was developing epicurean tastes.
When he turned to the left and looked out through the entrance of the
leafy arbor he had before him the spacious plain, covered with long rows
of tents: a busy, populous city that had risen like an exhalation from
the stubble-