for the eyes. Its aspect was bright and smiling, touches of
brilliant colour showing conspicuously amidst all the snowy marble. The
sign board, on which the name of QUENU-GRADELLE glittered in fat
gilt letters encircled by leaves and branches painted on a soft-hued
background, was protected by a sheet of glass. On two panels, one on
each side of the shop-front, and both, like the board above, covered
with glass, were paintings representing various chubby little cupids
playing amidst boars' heads, pork chops and strings of sausages; and
these latter still-life subjects, embellished with scrolls and bows,
had been painted in such soft tones that the uncooked pork which they
represented had the pinkiness of raspberry jam. Within this pleasing
framework arose the window display, arranged upon a bed of fine
blue-paper shavings. Here and there fern-leaves, tastefully disposed,
changed the plates which they encircled into bouquets fringed with
foliage. There was a wealth of rich, luscious, melting things. Down
below, quite close to the window, jars of preserved sausage-meat were
interspersed with pots of mustard. Above these were some small, plump,
boned hams. Golden with their dressings of toasted bread-crumbs, and
adorned at the knuckles with green rosettes. Next came the larger
dishes, some containing preserved Strasburg tongues, enclosed in
bladders coloured a bright red and varnished, so that they looked quite
sanguineous beside the pale sausages and trotters; then there were
black-puddings coiled like harmless snakes, healthy looking chitterlings
piled up two by two; Lyons sausages in little silver copes that made
them look like choristers; hot pies, with little banner-like tickets
stuck in them; big hams, and great glazed joints of veal and pork, whose
jelly was as limpid as sugar-candy. In the rear were other dishes and
earthen pans in which meat, minced and sliced, slumbered beneath lakes
of melted fat. And betwixt the various plates and dishes, jars and
bottle of sauce, cullis, stock and preserved truffles, pans of _foie
gras_ and boxes of sardines and tunny-fish were strewn over the bed of
paper shavings. A box of creamy cheeses, and one of edible snails, the
apertures of whose shells were dressed with butter and parsley, had been
placed carelessly at either corner. Finally, from a bar overhead strings
of sausages and saveloys of various sizes hung down symmetrically like
cords and tassels; while in the rear fragments