s French taste for color and decoration appreciated:
two or three stems of lilies-of-the-valley in their folded green leaves,
cool and fragrant; a moss-rosebud and a spire of purple-gray lavender
bound together with ribbon-grass; or three carnations set in glittering
myrtle-sprays, the last acquisition of the garden.

Miss Lucinda enjoyed nursing thoroughly, and a kindlier patient no woman
ever had. Her bright needle flew faster than ever through the cold linen
and flaccid cambric of the shirts and cravats she fashioned, while he
told her, in his odd idioms, stories of his life in France, and the
curious customs both of society and _cuisinerie_, with which last he
showed a surprising acquaintance. Truth to tell, when Monsieur Leclerc
said he had been a member of the Duc de Montmorenci's household,
he withheld the other half of this truth,--that he had been his
_valet-de-chambre_: but it was an hereditary service, and seemed to him
as different a thing from common servitude as a peer's office in the
bedchamber differs from a lackey's. Indeed, Monsieur Leclerc was a
gentleman in his own way,--not of blood, but of breeding; and while he
had faithfully served the "aristocrats," as his father had done before
him, he did not limit that service to their prosperity, but in their
greatest need descended to menial offices, and forgot that he could
dance and ride and fence almost as well as his young master. But a
bullet from a barricade put an end to his duty there, and he hated
utterly the democratic rule that had overturned for him both past
and future, so he escaped, and came to America, the grand resort of
refugees, where he had labored, as he best knew how, for his own
support, and kept to himself his disgust at the manners and customs of
the barbarians. Now, for the first time, he was at home and happy. Miss
Lucinda's delicate fashions suited him exactly; he adored her taste for
the beautiful, which she was unconscious of; he enjoyed her cookery, and
though he groaned within himself at the amount of debt he was incurring,
yet he took courage from her kindness to believe she would not be a hard
creditor, and, being naturally cheerful, put aside his anxieties and
amused himself as well as her with his stories, his quavering songs, his
recipes for _pot-au-feu_, _tisane_, and _pates_, at once economical and
savory. Never had a leg of lamb or a piece of roast beef gone so far
in her domestic experience, a chicken seemed almost to