utest particulars,--an art
of which the bourgeois mind is ignorant, though it is much taken with
its results. A glass chandelier, with twenty-four wax-candles, brought
out the color of the red silk draperies; the polished floor had an
enticing look, which tempted Cesarine to dance.

"How charming!" she said; "and yet there is nothing to seize the eye."

"Exactly, mademoiselle," said the architect; "the charm comes from the
harmony which reigns between the wainscots, walls, cornices, and the
decorations; I have gilded nothing, the colors are sober, and not
extravagant in tone."

"It is a science," said Cesarine.

A boudoir in green and white led into Cesar's study.

"Here I have put a bed," said Grindot, opening the doors of an alcove
cleverly hidden between the two bookcases. "If you or madame should
chance to be ill, each can have your own room."

"But this bookcase full of books, all bound! Oh! my wife, my wife!"
cried Cesar.

"No; that is Cesarine's surprise."

"Pardon the feelings of a father," said Cesar to the architect, as he
kissed his daughter.

"Oh! of course, of course, monsieur," said Grindot; "you are in your own
home."

Brown was the prevailing color in the study, relieved here and there
with green, for a thread of harmony led through all the rooms and allied
them with one another. Thus the color which was the leading tone of one
room became the relieving tint of another. The engraving of Hero and
Leander shone on one of the panels of Cesar's study.

"Ah! _thou_ wilt pay for all this," said Birotteau, looking gaily at it.

"That beautiful engraving is given to you by Monsieur Anselme," said
Cesarine.

(Anselme, too, had allowed himself a "surprise.")

"Poor boy! he has done just as I did for Monsieur Vauquelin."

The bedroom of Madame Birotteau came next. The architect had there
displayed a magnificence well calculated to please the worthy people
whom he was anxious to snare; he had really kept his word and _studied_
this decoration. The room was hung in blue silk, with white ornaments;
the furniture was in white cassimere touched with blue. On the
chimney-piece, of white marble, stood a clock representing Venus
crouching, on a fine block of marble; a moquette carpet, of Turkish
design, harmonized this room with that of Cesarine, which opened out
of it, and was coquettishly hung with Persian chintz. A piano, a pretty
wardrobe with a mirror door, a chaste little bed with simple curtains,