the contrary,
receive you coldly--so coldly, indeed, that sometimes you feel
mortified--but afterward they do a thousand things for you with the
best will in the world, and without the least appearance of doing you
a kindness.

Within, the house was in perfect harmony with its outside appearance;
it seemed to be the inside of a ship. A circular wooden staircase,
shining like polished ebony, led to the upper rooms. There were mats
and carpets on the stairs, in front of the doors, and on the floors.
The rooms were as small as cells, the furniture was as clean as
possible, the door-plates, the knobs, the nails, the brass and the
other metal ornaments were as bright as if they had just left the
hands of the burnisher. Everywhere there was a profusion of porcelain
vases, of cups, lamps, mirrors, small pictures, bureaus, cupboards,
knicknacks, and small objects of every shape and for every use. All
were marvellously clean, and bespoke the thousand little wants that
the love of a sedentary life creates--the careful foresight, the
continual care, the taste for little things, the love of order, the
economy of space; in short, it was the abode of a quiet, domestic
woman.

The goddess of this temple, who could not or did not dare speak
French, was hidden in some inmost recess which I did not succeed in
discovering.

We went down stairs to see the kitchen; it was one gleam of
brightness. When I returned home I described it, in my mother's
presence, to the servant who prided herself on her cleanliness, and
she was annihilated. The walls were as white as snow; the saucepans
reflected everything like so many looking-glasses; the top of the
chimney-piece was ornamented by a sort of muslin curtain like the
curtains of a bed, bearing no trace of smoke; the wall below the
chimney was covered with square majolica tiles which were as clean as
though the fire had never been lighted; the andirons, shovel, and
tongs, the chain of the spit, all seemed to be of burnished steel. A
lady dressed for a ball could have gone round the room and into all
the corners and touched everything without getting a speck of dirt on
her spotless attire.

At this moment the maid was cleaning the room, and my host spoke of
this as follows: "To have an idea of what cleanliness means with us,"
he said, "one ought to watch the work of these women for an hour. Here
they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were a person. A house is
not cleaned; it has its to