the damage at three hundred thousand livres.

This piece of news flung me back despairing on my drawing-room sofa.
Could it be that my father, instead of spending this money in arranging
a marriage for me, would have left me to die in the convent? This was
the first thought to greet me on the threshold of my home.

Ah! Renee, what would I have given then to rest my head upon your
shoulder, or to transport myself to the days when my grandmother made
the life of these rooms? You two in all the world have been alone in
loving me--you away at Maucombe, and she who survives only in my heart,
the dear old lady, whose still youthful eyes used to open from sleep at
my call. How well we understood each other!

These memories suddenly changed my mood. What at first had seemed
profanation, now breathed of holy association. It was sweet to inhale
the faint odor of the powder she loved still lingering in the room;
sweet to sleep beneath the shelter of those yellow damask curtains with
their white pattern, which must have retained something of the spirit
emanating from her eyes and breath. I told Philippe to rub up the old
furniture and make the rooms look as if they were lived in; I explained
to him myself how I wanted everything arranged, and where to put each
piece of furniture. In this way I entered into possession, and showed
how an air of youth might be given to the dear old things.

The bedroom is white in color, a little dulled with time, just as the
gilding of the fanciful arabesques shows here and there a patch of red;
but this effect harmonizes well with the faded colors of the Savonnerie
tapestry, which was presented to my grandmother by Louis XV. along with
his portrait. The timepiece was a gift from the Marechal de Saxe,
and the china ornaments on the mantelpiece came from the Marechal de
Richelieu. My grandmother's portrait, painted at the age of twenty-five,
hangs in an oval frame opposite that of the King. The Prince, her
husband, is conspicuous by his absence. I like this frank negligence,
untinged by hypocrisy--a characteristic touch which sums up her charming
personality. Once when my grandmother was seriously ill, her confessor
was urgent that the Prince, who was waiting in the drawing-room, should
be admitted.

"He can come in with the doctor and his drugs," was the reply.

The bed has a canopy and well-stuffed back, and the curtains are looped
up with fine wide bands. The furniture is of gilded wood, upho