She entered into intimate details, insisting always on this word "suitable," that came back continually to her lips apropos of things that were scarcely so,--at least, to my thinking. As we finished our sorting of the garments, she said to me: "A woman, no matter what woman, should always be well kept. For the rest, Mary, you will do as I do; this is a point of capital importance. You-will take a bath to-morrow. I will show you." Then Madame took me to her room, showed me her closets, her hangings, the place for everything, familiarized me with the service, all the time making remarks that seemed to me queer and not natural. "Now," said she, "let us go to M. Xavier's room. That, too, will be in your charge. M. Xavier is my son, Mary." "Very well, Madame." M. Xavier's room was situated at the other end of the vast apartment. A coquettish room, hung in blue cloth with yellow trimmings. On the walls colored English engravings representing hunting and racing scenes, teams, châteaux. A cane-holder stood in front of a panel,--a real panoply of canes, with a hunting-horn in the middle, flanked by two mail-coach trumpets crossed. On the mantel, among many bibelots, cigar-boxes, and pipes, a photograph of a pretty boy, very young and still beardless, with the insolent face of a precocious dude and the uncertain grace of a girl,--the whole producing an effect that pleased me. "That is M. Xavier," said Madame. I could not help exclaiming, undoubtedly with too much warmth: "Oh! what a handsome boy!" "Well, well, Mary!" exclaimed Madame. I saw that my exclamation had not offended her, for she had smiled. "M. Xavier is like all young people," she said to me. "He is not very orderly. You must be orderly for him; and his room must be perfectly kept. You will enter the room every morning at nine o'clock; you will bring him his tea; at nine o'clock, you understand, Mary? Sometimes M. Xavier comes home late. Perhaps he will not receive you well in the morning, but that makes no difference. A young man should be awakened at nine o'clock." She showed me where M. Xavier kept his linen, his cravats, his shoes, accompanying each detail with some remark like this: "My son is a little sharp, but he is a charming child." Or else: "Do you know how to fold pantaloons? Oh! M. Xavier is especially particular about his pantaloons." As for the hats, it was agreed that I need pay no attention to them, the glory of their daily ironing belonging to the _valet de chambre_. I found it extremely odd that, in a house where there was a _valet de chambre_, Madame should select me to serve M. Xavier. "It is funny, but perhaps it is not very suitable," I said to myself, parodying the word which my mistress was constantly repeating apropos of no matter what. It is true that everything seemed odd to me in this odd house. In the evening, in the servants' hall, I learned many things.