It was funny to see how everybody set to work without a word to his fellow. Herbert made a special raid through the garden and nipped off the choicest October roses--buds mostly--as befitted our guest. Louis, succumbing to the general expectancy, occupied himself in painting the menus on which Watteau cupids swinging from garlands were most pronounced. Brierley, pretending it was for himself, spent half the morning tuning up the spinet with a bed-key, in case this rarest of women could sing, or should want any one else to, while Lemois, with that same dry smile which his face always wears when his mind is occupied with something that amuses him, ordered Pierre to begin at once the preparation of his most famous dish, Poulet Vallée d'Auge, spending the rest of the morning in putting a final polish on his entire George III coffee service--something he never did except for persons, as he remarked, of "exceptional quality." Not to be outdone in courtesy I unhooked the great iron key of the wine-cellar from its nail in Pierre's kitchen, and swinging back the old door on its rusty hinges, drew from among the cobwebs a bottle of Chablis, our heavier Burgundies being, of course, too heating for so dainty a creature. This I carried in my own hands to the Marmouset, preserving its long-time horizontal so as not to arouse a grain of the sediment of years, tucking it at last into a crib of a basket for a short nap, only to be again awakened when my lady's glass was ready. When the glad hour arrived and we were drawn up to receive her--every man in his best outfit--best he had--with a rosebud in his button-hole--and she emerged from the darkness and stood in the light of the overhead candles--long, lank Marc bowing and scraping at her side, there escaped from each one of us, all but Lemois, a half-smothered groan which sounded like a faint wail. What we saw was not a paragon of delicate beauty, nor a vision of surpassing loveliness, but a parallelogram stood up on end, fifty or more years of age, one unbroken perpendicular line from her shoulders to her feet--or rather to a brown velvet, close-fitting skirt that reached to her shoe-tops--which were stout as a man's and apparently as big. About her shoulders was a reefing jacket, also of brown velvet, fastened with big horn buttons; above this came a loose cherry-red scarf of finest silk in perfect harmony with the brown of the velvet; above this again was a head surmounted by a mass of fluffy, partly gray hair, parted on one side--as Rosa Bonheur wore hers. Then came two brilliant agate eyes, two ruddy cheeks, and a sunny, happy mouth filled with pearl-white teeth. One smile--and it came with the radiance of a flashlight--and all misgivings vanished. There was no question of her charm, of her refinement, or of her birth. Neither was there any question as to her thorough knowledge of the world.