tately old chateau was framed in this
kind of landscape gardening, utterly out of character with it. It was
only Monsieur Urbain's experience which had saved trees from being cut
down in full leaf, to let in points of view, and had delayed the
planting in hot September weather of a whole forest of shrubs on the
sloping bank, where the moat had once been.

The interior of the house, too, was undergoing a great reformation.
Madame de Sainfoy had sent down a quantity of modern furniture from
Paris, the arrangement of which had caused the worthy Urbain a good deal
of perplexity. He had prided himself on preserving many ancient
splendours of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, not from any love for these relics of
a former society, but because good taste and sentiment alike showed him
how entirely they belonged to these old rooms and halls, where the
ponderous, carved chimney-pieces rose from floor to painted ceiling,
blazoned with arms which not even the Revolution had cut away. But
Madame de Sainfoy's idea was to sweep everything off: the tapestries,
which she considered grotesque and hideous, from the walls; the rows of
solemn old chairs and sofas, the large screens and heavy oak tables, the
iron dogs from the fireplace, on which so many winter logs had flamed
and died down into a heap of grey ashes. All must go, and the old
saloon must be made into a modern drawing-room of the Empire.

Madame de la Mariniere, being old-fashioned and prejudiced, resented
these changes, which seemed to her both monstrous and ungrateful. She
was angry with her husband for the angelic patience with which he bore
them, throwing himself with undimmed enthusiasm into the carrying out of
every wish, every new-fangled fancy, that Herve and Adelaide de Sainfoy
had brought from Paris with them. If he was disappointed at the bundling
off into garret and cellar of so much of Lancilly's old and hardly-kept
glory, he only showed it by a shrug and a smile.

"If one does not know, one must be content to learn," he said. "A modern
fish wants a modern shell, my dear Anne. I may have been foolish to
forget it. The atmosphere that you enjoy gives Adelaide the blues. Come,
I will quote Scripture. 'New wine must be put into new bottles.'"

"Then, on the whole, it was a pity Lancilly was not burnt down," said
his wife.

"Ah, Lancilly! Lancilly will see a few more fashions yet," he said.

And now he stood, quite happy and serene, in the cold sunshine of
Adelaide's smile,