who had come up one staircase and gone down another without pausing for
a moment in any of the apartments he had mechanically traversed.

CHAPTER IV.

AVOID TEMPTATION!

It is night. Profound silence reigns in the pavilion inhabited by
Jacques Ferrand, interrupted only at intervals by gusts of wind and the
dashing of rain, which falls in torrents. These melancholy sounds seemed
to render still more complete the solitude of this abode. In a
sleeping-room in the first floor, very nicely and newly furnished, and
covered with a thick carpet, a young female is standing up before a
fireplace, in which there is a cheerful blaze. It is strange, but in the
centre of the door, carefully bolted, and which is opposite to the bed,
is a small glass door, five or six inches square, which opens from the
outside. A small reflecting lamp casts a half shadow in this chamber,
hung with garnet-coloured paper; the curtains of the bed and the window,
as well as the cover of the large sofa, are of silk and woollen damask
of the same colour. We are precise in the details of this demi-luxury so
recently imported into the notary's residence, because it announces a
complete revolution in the habits of Jacques Ferrand, who, until now,
was of the most sordid avarice, and of Spartan disregard (especially as
it concerned others) to everything that respected comfortable existence.
It is on this garnet-coloured ground that was shadowed forth the figure
of Cecily, which we will now attempt to paint.

Tall and graceful, the creole was in the full flower of her age. Her
spreading shoulders and hips made her waist appear so singularly small
that it seemed as if it could be easily spanned. As simple as it was
coquettish, her Alsatian costume was of singular taste, somewhat
theatrical,--but for that reason more capable of producing the effect
she desired. Her bodice, of black cassimere, half open on her full
bosom, was very long-waisted, with tight sleeves, plain back, and
slightly embroidered with purple wool down the seams, perfected by a row
of small cut silver buttons. A short petticoat, of orange merino, which
seemed of vast fullness, descended little lower than the knee; her
stockings were of scarlet, with blue clocks, as we see them in the
drawings of the old Flemish painters, who so complacently show us the
garters of their robust heroines.

No artist ever drew more perfect legs than were those of Cecily:
symmetrical and slim beneath th