ich was just then lingering on the hearth; I knew she read at
once the sort of inward ruth and pitying pain which the chill vacancy of
that hearth stirred in my soul: quick to penetrate, quick to determine,
and quicker to put in practice, she had in a moment tied a holland apron
round her waist; then she disappeared, and reappeared with a basket;
it had a cover; she opened it, and produced wood and coal; deftly and
compactly she arranged them in the grate.

"It is her whole stock, and she will exhaust it out of hospitality,"
thought I.

"What are you going to do?" I asked: "not surely to light a fire this
hot evening? I shall be smothered."

"Indeed, monsieur, I feel it very chilly since the rain began; besides,
I must boil the water for my tea, for I take tea on Sundays; you will be
obliged to try and bear the heat."

She had struck a light; the wood was already in a blaze; and truly, when
contrasted with the darkness, the wild tumult of the tempest without,
that peaceful glow which began to beam on the now animated hearth,
seemed very cheering. A low, purring sound, from some quarter, announced
that another being, besides myself, was pleased with the change; a
black cat, roused by the light from its sleep on a little cushioned
foot-stool, came and rubbed its head against Frances' gown as she knelt;
she caressed it, saying it had been a favourite with her "pauvre tante
Julienne."

The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very
antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old
farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances' hands
were washed, and her apron removed in an instant then she opened a
cupboard, and took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a
china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote
antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each
saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid
on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy
silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these
preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes,
she smiled and asked--

"Is this like England, monsieur?"

"Like the England of a hundred years ago," I replied.

"Is it truly? Well, everything on this tray is at least a hundred
years old: these cups, these spoons, this ewer, are all heirlooms; my
great-grandmother left them to my grandmothe