with the general air of gloom. It wearied your eyes
to look at the ceilings all divided up by huge painted crossbeams and
adorned with a feeble lozenge pattern or a rosette in the middle. The
paint was old, startling in tint, and begrimed with smoke. The sun had
faded the heavy silk curtains in the drawing-room; the old-fashioned
Beauvais tapestry which covered the white-painted furniture had lost
all its color with wear. A Louis Quinze clock on the chimney-piece
stood between two extravagant, branched sconces filled with yellow
wax candles, which the Presidente only lighted on occasions when the
old-fashioned rock-crystal chandelier emerged from its green wrapper.
Three card-tables, covered with threadbare baize, and a backgammon
box, sufficed for the recreations of the company; and Mme. du Ronceret
treated them to such refreshments as cider, chestnuts, pastry puffs,
glasses of eau sucree, and home-made orgeat. For some time past she had
made a practice of giving a party once a fortnight, when tea and some
pitiable attempts at pastry appeared to grace the occasion.

Once a quarter the du Roncerets gave a grand three-course dinner, which
made a great sensation in the town, a dinner served up in execrable
ware, but prepared with the science for which the provincial cook is
remarkable. It was a Gargantuan repast, which lasted for six whole
hours, and by abundance the President tried to vie with du Croisier's
elegance.

And so du Ronceret's life and its accessories were just what might
have been expected from his character and his false position. He felt
dissatisfied at home without precisely knowing what was the matter; but
he dared not go to any expense to change existing conditions, and was
only too glad to put by seven or eight thousand francs every year, so as
to leave his son Fabien a handsome private fortune. Fabien du Ronceret
had no mind for the magistracy, the bar, or the civil service, and his
pronounced turn for doing nothing drove his parent to despair.

On this head there was rivalry between the President and the
Vice-President, old M. Blondet. M. Blondet, for a long time past, had
been sedulously cultivating an acquaintance between his son and the
Blandureau family. The Blandureaus were well-to-do linen manufacturers,
with an only daughter, and it was on this daughter that the President
had fixed his choice of a wife for Fabien. Now, Joseph Blondet's
marriage with Mlle. Blandureau depended on his nominati