visited; no allusion ever
being made to the popular topics of the day,--to me a most inexplicable
circumstance, and one which I could not avoid slightly expressing my
astonishment at to the lady beside me. She smiled significantly at my
remark, and merely said,--

"It is so agreeable to discuss matters where there can be no great
difference of opinion,--at least, no more than sharpens the wit of the
speakers,--that you will rarely hear other subjects talked of here."

"But have the great events which are yet passing no interest?"

"Perhaps they interest too deeply to admit of much discussion," said
she, with some earnestness of manner.

"But I am myself transgressing; and, what is still worse, losing you the
observations of Monsieur de Saint George on Madame de Sevigne."

The remark was evidently made to change the current of our conversation;
and so I accepted it,--listening to the chit-chat around me, which, from
its novelty alone, possessed a most uncommon charm to my ears. It was
so strange to hear the allusions to the courtiers and the beauties of
bygone days made with all the freshness of yesterday acquaintance; and
the stores of anecdotes about the court of Louis the Fifteenth and the
Regency told with a piquancy that made the event seem like an occurrence
of the morning.

Before we retired to the drawing-room for coffee, I saw that the
"pension" was a Royalist establishment, and wondered how it happened
that I should have been selected by the host to make one of his guests.
Yet unquestionably there seemed no reserve towards me; on the contrary,
each evinced a tone of frankness and cordiality which made me perfectly
at ease, and well satisfied at the fortune which led me to the Rue
Mi-Careme.

The little parties of dominoes and piquet scattered through the _salon_;
some formed groups to converse; the ladies resumed their embroidery; and
all the occupations of indoor life were assumed with a readiness that
betokened habit, and gave to the "pension" the comfortable air of a
home.

Thus passed the first evening. The next morning the party assembled at
an early hour to breakfast; after which the gentlemen went out, and did
not appear until dinnertime,--day succeeding day in unvarying but to me
not unpleasing monotony. I rarely wandered from the large wilderness of
a garden near the house, and saw weeks pass over without a thought ever
occurring to me that life must not thus be suffered to ebb.

CHAPTE