uilt at the end of the eighteenth century, stood
in the middle of a huge square enclosure. It was perfectly unadorned,
but the garden possessed magnificent shady trees and a chain of tanks
fed by running spring water. It stood at the side of the road which
leads from Orleans to Paris and with its rich verdure and high-embowered
trees broke the monotony of that flat countryside, where fields
stretched to the horizon's verge.

At eleven o'clock, when the second lunch bell had called the whole
household together, Mme Hugon, smiling in her kindly maternal way, gave
Sabine two great kisses, one on each cheek, and said as she did so:

"You know it's my custom in the country. Oh, seeing you here makes me
feel twenty years younger. Did you sleep well in your old room?"

Then without waiting for her reply she turned to Estelle:

"And this little one, has she had a nap too? Give me a kiss, my child."

They had taken their seats in the vast dining room, the windows of
which looked out on the park. But they only occupied one end of the
long table, where they sat somewhat crowded together for company's sake.
Sabine, in high good spirits, dwelt on various childish memories
which had been stirred up within her--memories of months passed at Les
Fondettes, of long walks, of a tumble into one of the tanks on a summer
evening, of an old romance of chivalry discovered by her on the top of a
cupboard and read during the winter before fires made of vine branches.
And Georges, who had not seen the countess for some months, thought
there was something curious about her. Her face seemed changed,
somehow, while, on the other hand, that stick of an Estelle seemed more
insignificant and dumb and awkward than ever.

While such simple fare as cutlets and boiled eggs was being discussed by
the company, Mme Hugon, as became a good housekeeper, launched out into
complaints. The butchers, she said, were becoming impossible. She bought
everything at Orleans, and yet they never brought her the pieces she
asked for. Yet, alas, if her guests had nothing worth eating it was
their own fault: they had come too late in the season.

"There's no sense in it," she said. "I've been expecting you since June,
and now we're half through September. You see, it doesn't look pretty."

And with a movement she pointed to the trees on the grass outside, the
leaves of which were beginning to turn yellow. The day was covered, and
the distance was hidden by a bluish haz