eek. Du Croisier might import modern luxury into the
town, M. and Mme. de Ronceret were faithful to the old traditions.
They had always lived in the old-fashioned house belonging to Mme. du
Ronceret, and had made no changes in it since their marriage. The
house stood between a garden and a courtyard. The gray old gable end,
with one window in each story, gave upon the road. High walls enclosed
the garden and the yard, but the space taken up beneath them in the
garden by a walk shaded with chestnut trees was filled in the yard by
a row of outbuildings. An old rust-devoured iron gate in the garden
wall balanced the yard gateway, a huge, double-leaved carriage
entrance with a buttress on either side, and a mighty shell on the
top. The same shell was repeated over the house-door.

The whole place was gloomy, close, and airless. The row of iron-gated
openings in the opposite wall, as you entered, reminded you of prison
windows. Every passer-by could look in through the railings to see how
the garden grew; the flowers in the little square borders never seemed
to thrive there.

The drawing-room on the ground floor was lighted by a single window on
the side of the street, and a French window above a flight of steps,
which gave upon the garden. The dining-room on the other side of the
great ante-chamber, with its windows also looking out into the garden,
was exactly the same size as the drawing-room, and all three
apartments were in harmony with the general air of gloom. It wearied
your eyes to look at the ceilings all divided up by huge painted
crossbeams and adorned with a feeble lozenge pattern or a rosette in
the middle. The paint was old, startling in tint, and begrimed with
smoke. The sun had faded the heavy silk curtains in the drawing-room;
the old-fashioned Beauvais tapestry which covered the white-painted
furniture had lost all its color with wear. A Louis Quinze clock on
the chimney-piece stood between two extravagant, branched sconces
filled with yellow wax candles, which the Presidente only lighted on
occasions when the old-fashioned rock-crystal chandelier emerged from
its green wrapper. Three card-tables, covered with threadbare baize,
and a backgammon box, sufficed for the recreations of the company; and
Mme. du Ronceret treated them to such refreshments as cider,
chestnuts, pastry puffs, glasses of eau sucree, and home-made orgeat.
For some time past she had made a practice of giving a party once a
fortnight,