h a damp, faded paper on the walls.

In this shabby room, with nothing to see but the walnut-tree, the dark
leaves growing against the walls, and the almost deserted road
beyond them, a somewhat lively and frivolous woman, accustomed to the
amusements and stir of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day,
and for the most part of the time alone, though she received tiresome
and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to
empty tittle-tattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of
intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment and embittered her
condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so
much from taste as for the sake of an interest in her almost solitary
life, and exercised her mind on the only subjects which she could
find--to wit, the intrigues which went on around her, the ways of
provincials, and the ambitions shut in by their narrow horizons. So she
very soon fathomed mysteries of which her husband had no idea. As she
sat at her window with a piece of intermittent embroidery work in her
fingers, she did not see her woodshed full of faggots nor the servant
busy at the wash tub; she was looking out upon Paris, Paris where
everything is pleasure, everything is full of life. She dreamed of Paris
gaieties, and shed tears because she must abide in this dull prison of
a country town. She was disconsolate because she lived in a peaceful
district, where no conspiracy, no great affair would ever occur. She saw
herself doomed to sit under the shadow of the walnut-tree for some time
to come.

Mme. Camusot was a little, plump, fresh, fair-haired woman, with a very
prominent forehead, a mouth which receded, and a turned-up chin, a type
of countenance which is passable in youth, but looks old before the
time. Her bright, quick eyes expressed her innocent desire to get on
in the world, and the envy born of her present inferior position, with
rather too much candor; but still they lighted up her commonplace face
and set it off with a certain energy of feeling, which success was
certain to extinguish in later life. At that time she used to give a
good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings and
embroidering them; she planned out her costumes with the maid whom she
had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the reputation of
Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she was
not loved. In that keen, investigating spiri