At first glance there was nothing _cherché_, in the poetic or picturesque sense, in that modest interior; and yet, on examining it more closely, one would see that, in that abode, as in all those of all mankind, the natural taste and temperament of its presiding genius had governed in the choice as in the arrangement of the furniture. The young man, who then entered the room for the first time, and who was left alone there for a moment while his hosts busied themselves in preparations to make him as comfortable as possible, soon formed an idea of the mental condition of the inhabitants of that retreat. It was evident that they had refined habits and that they still felt a craving for the comforts of life; that, being in a very precarious financial condition, they had had the good sense to proscribe every species of mere external vanity, and had chosen, for their place of assemblage, among the few still intact apartments in that great building, the one that could most easily be kept clean, heated, furnished and lighted; and that, nevertheless, they had instinctively given the preference to a well-proportioned, attractive room. This little nook was in fact the first floor of a square pavilion added, toward the close of the Renaissance, to the venerable buildings which looked upon the principal courtyard. The artist who had planned this sharp-angled turret had done his best to soften the transition from one to the other of two such different styles. For the shape of the windows he had gone back to the defensive system of loop-holes and small apertures through which to watch the enemy; but it was easy to see that the small round windows had never been intended to fire cannon through, and that they were simply for purposes of ornament. Being tastefully framed with red brick and white stone, in alternation, they formed an attractive setting for the interior of the room, and divers recesses between the windows decorated in the same way, avoided the necessity for papers, hangings, or even articles of furniture, with which the wall might have been covered, without adding to their simple and pleasant aspect. In one of these recesses, the base of which, about three feet from the floor, was formed by a flagstone white as snow and glistening like marble, stood a pretty little rustic spinning-wheel, with its distaff filled with brown flax; and as he contemplated that slight and primitive instrument of toil the traveller lost himself in reflections from which he was roused by the rustling of a woman's dress behind him. He turned hastily; but the sudden rapid beating of his youthful heart was checked by a severe disappointment. It was an old servant, who had entered the room noiselessly, thanks to the fine sand with which the floor was covered, and was leaning over to throw an armful of wild grapevine roots on the fire.