Zéphyrine opened her mouth to answer, shrugged her shoulders slightly and disappeared. “Three loaves!” I exclaimed in my turn. “But what kind of an appetite do you suppose I have, Madame la Comtesse?” “Oh, that is nothing,” said she, “They are quite small.” She was silent for a moment, I sought for some subject of conversation while awaiting the time when I might retire, when she appeared a prey to a certain perplexity, placed her hand on a bell, and stopped to say as if speaking to herself—“Still three loaves!” “It is a great deal in fact,” answered I, repressing a strong temptation to laugh. She looked at me in amazement, unconscious that she had spoken aloud. “You speak of the law suit,” said she, as if to make me forget her distraction, “it is a great deal that they claim. Do you think we will gain it?” But she paid very little attention to my evasive answers, and rang emphatically. A servant came, she asked for Zéphyrine, who reappeared and in whose ear she whispered, after which she seemed relieved, and began to chat with me like a good-natured gossip, very ignorant, but benevolent and almost maternal, questioning me upon my tastes, my dispositions, my occupations and my pleasures. I made myself more of a child than I was in order to put her at her ease, for I soon remarked that she was one of those women of the great world who contrive to get along with the most mediocre intelligence, and who would prefer not to encounter a greater degree in others. On the whole she showed so much good nature that I was not greatly bored with her during the space of an hour, and that I did not await her permission to leave her with too much impatience. A groom of the chambers conducted me to my apartment, for it was almost a complete suite, three decidedly handsome rooms, quite large and furnished in the Louis XV style, with a great deal of luxury. My own servant to whom my good mother had given his lesson, was in my bedroom, awaiting the honor of undressing me, in order to appear as well posted in his duties as the valets of great houses. “This is all very well, my dear Baptiste,” said I to him, when we were alone, “but thou canst go to sleep, I shall undress myself as I have been in the habit of doing all my life.” Baptiste bade me good-night, and left me. It was only ten o’clock. I had no desire to sleep so soon, so I set myself to examine the furniture and pictures in my room, when my eyes fell upon the repast which had been served near the fire-place, and the three loaves appeared before me in all their mysterious symmetry. They were passably large and arranged in the centre of the Japanese waiter in a pretty basket of old Saxony, with a handsome silver salt-cellar in the midst, and three damask napkins placed at intervals around it.