Yes, the mist was cold, but white as snow; and, hovering outside the windows of the comfortable coupe, it lighted up with soft reflections the newspaper in the doctor's hands. Over yonder in the dark, crowded, populous quarters, in the Paris of tradesmen and workmen, they know nothing of the pretty morning mist that loiters on the broad avenues; the bustle of the waking hours, the passing and repassing of market-gardeners' wagons, omnibuses, drays loaded with old iron, soon chop it and rend it and scatter it. Each passer-by carries away a little of it on a threadbare coat, a worn muffler, or coarse gloves rubbing against each other. It drenches the shivering blouses, the waterproofs thrown over working dresses; it blends with all the breaths, hot with insomnia or alcohol, buries itself in the depths of empty stomachs, penetrates the shops which are just opening their doors, dark courtyards, staircases, where it stands on the balusters and walls, and fireless garrets. That is why so little of it remains out-of-doors. But in that open, stately portion of Paris where Dr. Jenkins' patients lived, on those broad tree-lined boulevards, those deserted quays, the mist soared immaculate, in innumerable waves, as light and fleecy as down. It was compact, discreet, almost luxurious, because the sun, slothful in his rising, was beginning to diffuse soft, purplish tints, which gave to the mist that enveloped everything, even the roofs of the rows of mansions, the aspect of a sheet of white muslin spread over scarlet cloth. One would have said that it was a great curtain sheltering the long, untroubled sleep of wealth, a thick curtain behind which nothing could be heard save the soft closing of a porte-cochere, the rattling of the milkmen's tin cans, the bells of a herd of asses trotting by, followed by the short, panting breath of their conductor, and the rumbling of Jenkins' coupe beginning its daily round. First of all, to the hotel de Mora. On the Quai d'Orleans, beside the Spanish embassy, stood a superb palace with its principal entrance on Rue de Lille, and a door on the riverside, and long terraces which formed a continuation of those of the embassy. Between two high, ivy-covered walls, connected by imposing stone arches, the coupe flew like an arrow, announced by two strokes of a clanging bell, which aroused Jenkins from the trance in which the perusal of his newspaper seemed to have plunged him. Then the wheels rolled less noisily over the gravel of a vast courtyard and stopped, after a graceful sweep, at the front steps, above which was spread a circular awning. One could see indistinctly through the mist half a score of carriages in a line, and the silhouettes of English grooms leading the duke's saddle-horse up and down an avenue of acacias, all leafless at that season and standing naked in their bark. Everything revealed well-ordered, pompous, assured luxury.