The portress’s little niece had already preceded him to the floor in view, ere Sir Godfrey reached it, almost breathless, counting the storeys. The whole structure, from base to summit, appeared not merely to teem with apartments, but, as it ascended, to rise and open skyward into visible life: one pleasant buzz of French vivacity, indeed, had seemed to circulate above till the girl appeared; and her voice could now be heard in eager dialogue behind an adjoining door with the young woman who a minute before had been speaking over the balusters. He knocked, half open although it stood, and was at once answered by the latter. Suzanne Deroux was the name of her mother, she said—who was within. There was something hard and cold, almost sullen, about the young woman’s face, though it was well-formed: her cheek seemed worn, her eyes dry and lustreless; nor did she make any inviting or inquiring remark, merely making way for and following the stranger as he slowly entered. It was a bare garret, with the red-tiled floor of such ordinary Parisian abodes, a low yellow-washed ceiling, much narrower than the floor, as on one side the wall slanted with the roof; yet everything was neat, clean, and decently arranged. But the glance took it in at once, without leaving so much as a shadow; neither hearth nor semblance of a closet broke its completeness, to the recess of the upright dormer-window, which seemed a redeeming feature in so bald an apartment, where it rose large and shining out of the slope, beyond the older woman’s seat. That was an arm-chair, indeed, high-backed and easy: her feet were on a patch of carpet; a pot of mignonette was in flower on the window-sill; a small coarsely-coloured print of some portrait was stuck with a pin to the opposite wall of the recess; as if the household bloomed a little only in that direction, toward the sunlight, which came flooding with the air through the wide-open window-place. Seated on the floor, beside a deal box in a corner, under the slant of the wall, was a stout young workman with a boot-last, engaged on the second of an elegant pair of riding-boots; while a half-naked infant had been laid on the floor, among the parings of the vegetables which seemed meant for some afternoon meal—and was taken up by the portress’s little niece, to be hushed and shaken, with an air of matronly attention.