cht velvet; a tall secretaire in
a dark corner; an oval buhl-table set in tawdry ormolu, islanded in the
centre of a poor but gaudy Scotch carpet; and but one other table of
dull walnut-wood, standing clothless before a sofa to match the chairs;
the eternal ormolu clock flanked by the two eternal ormolu candelabra on
the dreary mantelpiece. Some of this garniture had been removed, others
softened into cheeriness and comfort. The room somehow or other--thanks
partly to a very moderate expenditure in pretty twills with pretty
borders, gracefully simple table-covers, with one or two additional
small tables and easy-chairs, two simple vases filled with flowers;
thanks still more to a nameless skill in re-arrangement, and the
disposal of the slight knick-knacks and well-bound volumes, which, even
in travelling, women who have cultivated the pleasures of taste carry
about them--had been coaxed into that quiet harmony, that tone of
consistent subdued colour, which corresponded with the characteristics
of the inmate. Most people might have been puzzled where to place the
piano, a semi-grand, so as not to take up too much space in the little
room; but where it was placed it seemed so at home that you might have
supposed the room had been built for it.

There are two kinds of neatness,--one is too evident, and makes
everything about it seem trite and cold and stiff; and another kind
of neatness disappears from our sight in a satisfied sense of
completeness,--like some exquisite, simple, finished style of writing,
an Addison's or a St. Pierre's.

This last sort of neatness belonged to Isaura, and brought to mind the
well-known line of Catullus when on recrossing his threshold he invokes
its welcome,--a line thus not inelegantly translated by Leigh Hunt,

"Smile every dimple on the cheek of Home."

I entreat the reader's pardon for this long descriptive digression;
but Isaura is one of those characters which are called many-sided, and
therefore not very easy to comprehend. She gives us one side of her
character in her correspondence with Madame de Grantmesnil, and another
side of it in her own home with her Italian companion,--half nurse, half
chaperon.

"Monsieur Louvier is indeed very courteous," said Isaura, looking up
from the flowers with the dimpled smile we have noticed. "But I
think, Madre, that we should do well to stay at home on Saturday,--not
peacefully, for I owe you your revenge at Euchre."

"You can't