oms all opening upon a
long hail which bisected the house, the stairway leading to the room in
the cupola rose the library itself, while the bisecting hail afforded be
only access to the library; hence, the gossips, 'eli acquainted with the
geography of the place, conferred seriously together upon what effect
Miss Betty's homecoming would have in this connection:

Dr anyone going to the stairway must needs pass her door; and, what
was more to the point, a party C gentlemen descending late from the
mysterious garret might be not so quiet as they intended, and the young
lady sufficiently disturbed to inquire of her father what entertainment
he provided that should keep his guests until four in the morning.

But at present it was with the opposite end of the house that the town
was occupied, for there, workmen were hammering and sawing and painting
day long, finishing the addition Mr. Carewe was building for his
daughter's debut. This hammering disturbed Miss Betty, who had become
almost as busy with the French Revolution as with her mantua-maker.
For she had found in her father's library many books not for
convent-shelves; and she had become a Girondin. She found memoirs,
histories, and tales of that delectable period, then not so dim with
time but that the figures of it were more than tragic shadows; and for a
week there was no meal in that house to which she sat down earlier
than half an hour Jate. She had a rightful property-interest in the
Revolution, her own great-uncle having been one of those who "suffered;"
not, however, under the guillotine; for to Georges Meilhac appertained
the rare distinction of death by accident on the day when the
business-like young Bonaparte played upon the mob with his cannon.

There were some yellow letters of this great uncle's in a box which had
belonged to her grandmother, a rich discovery for Miss Betty, who read
and re-read them with eager and excited eyes, living more in Paris with
Georges and his friends than in Rouen with her father. Indeed, she
had little else to do. Mr. Carewe was no comrade for her, by far the
reverse. She seldom saw him, except at the table, when he sat with
averted eyes, and talked to her very little; and, while making elaborate
preparation for her introduction to his friends (such was his phrase)
he treated her with a perfunctory civility which made her wonder if her
advent was altogether welcome to him; bat when she noticed that his hair
looked darker t