One winter’s evening, when the snow lay deep in the streets and the north wind whistled fiercely around the eaves, M. Dupuis’ dining-room looked particularly cheerful. The heavy tapestry curtains were drawn close before the windows, and a flaming wood fire showered sparkles of reflected light on the crystal and silver placed on the round dining-table, and lighted up the portraits of some sober-looking personages in powdered wigs which adorned the walls. The handsome tortoise-shell and copper clock, a masterpiece of the style Louis Quinze, standing on a hanging shelf above the sofa, was, perhaps, the best article of furniture in the room; the chimney-piece was too encumbered with porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, and china jars filled with artificial flowers and covered with great glass globes, for the taste of the present day. Fashion had slumbered in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte for many a long year. But there was light and warmth, and a pervading feeling of comfort, worth all the gilded, satin-covered chairs and lounges that Parisian taste can devise, all the Venetian mirrors and Sevres vases that luxury can afford. Mme. Dupuis’ dining-room was certainly rococo and provincial, incongruous in some respects, deficient in harmony, but what sincere, cordial hospitality those four walls had witnessed! what pleasant repasts! what real good, wholesome eating! what merry toasts had been drunk there in claret, in sherry, and champagne—wines as bright as Mme. Dupuis’ eyes, and as pure and unadulterated as her heart! A second clock, a very ugly one it must be confessed, a representative of the bad taste of the First Empire, which stood in the centre of the already too encumbered mantel-shelf, marked five minutes past six, and Mme. Dupuis was seated at the head of her dining-table. She was neatly dressed in black silk; her dark brown hair, streaked here and there with silver threads, was arranged in simple bandeaux on each side of her temples, and a small lace cap trimmed with a few knots of pink ribbon concealed the paucity of the “back hair”; for Mme. Dupuis was behind her time. She had not “marched with her age,” and had not yet learned to wear a “switch.” M. Dupuis, somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, but scrupulously neat, sat opposite to her. At an equal distance from each was placed a gentleman as old apparently as the ex-notary, but infinitely more pretentious in his style both of dress and manner. His coat and trowsers were of Parisian cut; his beard in the latest mode; his voice dictatorial—a man of the world evidently, and evidently also accustomed to think more of himself than of any one else. The little party was busily engaged in the agreeable duty of eating sundry “plats” which diffused a most appetizing odor. Marianne, madame’s right hand and faithful aid during many long years, waited at table, while the beautiful Angora sought its fortune around and under.