her that you were
remarking just now--the old gentleman--very short-sighted, sir--he is
immensely rich; _Pardi! que sais-je?_" (here he shrugged up his
shoulders to his ears,) "they say he has 50,000 francs a-year!--_c'est
assommant!_" (here he shut his eyes and raised his nose at an angle of
forty-five degrees.) "_Quant aux demoiselles, elles sont_"----(he was
evidently at a loss for an expression; so he extended his first two
fingers to his lips, closing tightly the others and his thumb, and then
blew a kiss with them to the winds.)

Tap! tap! at the door. "Pierre! are you coming down, then? they are
asking for you every where!" And the tightly girded, and somewhat
_altius accincta, fille-de-chambre_--a spruce little black-eyed
_Auvergnate_,--tripped into the room. "_Excusez, milor!_ but Pierre is
such a gossip!" "My good girl, I will detain neither Pierre nor
yourself: give me my coat, dust my room well, and now show me to the
_salle-a-manger_."

As good luck would have it, Pierre had placed a chair for me next to
Madame de Mirepoix, her husband was on the other side of his
lady,--'twas impossible to be in better company. Opposite to me was a
venerable white-haired mustached gentleman, evidently a military man,
and next to me was a lady, some five-and-forty, or thereabouts, with a
strong Spanish cast of countenance and complexion, and her husband, a
short thick-necked apoplectic-looking man, by her side. The rest of the
company, though various enough in their physiognomical aspect, were
evidently persons of the upper ranks of society, and among them were
several choice specimens of the best and oldest nobility of France. They
seemed all to make one joyous family party, as if they had been
relations rather than strangers; every body was laughing and chatting
with his neighbour; they were plying their forks most vigorously, and
the noise and bustle was excessive.

"What do you think of our baths?" said my lovely neighbour; "for of
course you have already been immersed in, and have tasted the waters." I
humbly alleged the negative. "Well! I declare this _phlegme Britannique_
is insupportable. Why, sir, we were at the bath-house before six this
morning."

"Had I but known it, Madame"----

"Ah, just so!" said the little apoplectic gentleman leaning across his
wife to me: "_Monsieur est Anglais! c'est tres bien, c'est tres bien!_
Monsieur, you do us great honour to come to visit this savage
wilderness. But _voyez-vo