epilogue to the dinner, Madame Nodier and Marie rose to go and light up the salon, and I, who took neither coffee nor liqueurs, accompanied them, to help in their task, my tall figure being very useful to them in lighting the lustres and candelabras without the necessity of standing on chairs. I need hardly say that if M. Saint-Valery, who was a foot taller than I, were there, the charge of lighting up fell to him by right. When, thanks to us, the salon was lit up,--a ceremony that only took place on Sundays, for on week-days the receptions were held in Madame Nodier's room--the light illuminated white panelled walls with Louis XV. mouldings, and furniture of extreme simplicity, comprising a dozen chairs or easy-chairs and a sofa covered with red cashmere, the hangings being of the same colour; a bust of Hugo, a statue of Henri IV. as a child, a portrait of Nodier and a landscape of a view in the Alps, by Régnier. On the left, as you entered, was Marie's piano, in a recess almost like a room in itself. This recess was large enough, like the spaces between bedsteads in the time of Louis XIV., for the friends of the household to stand round and talk with Marie as she played quadrilles and valses with her clever, agile fingers. But quadrilles and valses did not begin before the given moment: two hours, from eight to ten, were invariably devoted to conversation; then we danced from ten to one in the morning. Five minutes after Madame Nodier, Marie and I had lighted up the salon, Taylor and Cailleux were the first to come in--they were far more at home in the house than was Nodier himself; then came Nodier with his arm through that of Dauzats or Francis Wey or Bixio; for although Nodier was only thirty-eight or forty at that time, he was like a tall climbing plant that covers walls with leaves and flowers, but already needs something to lean on. Behind Nodier entered the rest of the guests, with his little daughter dancing and skipping. Ten minutes later, the usual callers began to drop in--Fontanay and Alfred Johannot, with their two impassive faces, always melancholy in the midst of our laughter and gaiety, as though they were under some vague presentiment of death; Tony Johannot, who never came without a fresh drawing or an engraving to enrich Marie's album or collection; Barye, who looked lonely in the midst of the tumult, for it always seemed as though his mind were far away from his body in quest of something wonderful; Louis Boulanger, with his variable moods, to-day sad, to-morrow gay, ever the same great artist, great poet and faithful friend; Francisque Michel, a seeker of old manuscripts, often so preoccupied with his researches of the day that he would forget he had come in an ancient hat of the period of Louis XIII. and yellow slippers; de Vigny, who, in ignorance of his future transfiguration, still deigned to mix with mortals; de Musset, almost a boy, dreaming over his _Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie_; and, bringing up the rear,