e finely carved marble staircase. At a monumental door on the ground floor the man pau

e could see Madame's keen, searching eyes looking him up and down and through and through. She even put up her

a Duchesse deigned to ask as she po

yond, Madame la Duchesse

arcasm, "is the antechamber very ful

spread over Hector's impassive count

is disengaged at the present moment. He

said, "that since M. le Comte has only granted an audience to his sister to-day, you thought it was

dently at a loss how to take Mme. la Duchesse's remark-whether as a rebuke or merely

outh felt dry and his head hot, and he did not know on which foot he could stand with the least possible discomfort, and how

l forgive me, I hope,"

kind old face had she

holidays just now. It's no use trying to throw dust in my eyes, my poor friend, or put on that pompous manner with me. I know that the carpets are not all temporarily rolled up or the best of the furniture at a repairer's in Grenoble-what's the use of pretending

ike face had become the colour of a peony, and who, torn between the respect which he had for the

she added, "announce me to M. le Comte and then go down to Jeanne and tell her that I for one have no intention of forgetting Worcester, or the pawned ring, or the sausages, and that the array of Grenoble louts dressed up fo

sumed the grand manner pertaining to Versailles, and Hector having swallowed an uncomfortabl

chesse douair