Bareaud was even happier than she was astonished (and she was
mightily astonished) to find her betrothed developing a taste for her
society alone. Formerly, she had counted upon the gayeties of her home
to keep Crailey near her; now, however, he told her tenderly he wished
to have her all to himself. This was not like him, but Fanchon did not
question; and it was very sweet to her that he began to make it his
custom to come in by a side gate and meet her under an apple-tree in
the dusk, where they would sit quietly together through the evening,
listening to the noise and laughter from the lighted house.

That house was the most hospitable in Rouen. Always cheerfully "full of
company," as they said, it was the sort of house where a carpet-dance
could be arranged in half an hour; a house with a sideboard like
the widow's cruse; the young men always found more. Mrs. Bareaud, a
Southerner, loving to persuade the visitor that her home was his, not
hers, lived only for her art, which was that of the table. Evil
cooks, taking service with her, became virtuous, dealt with nectar and
ambrosia, and grew fit to pander to Olympus, learning of their mistress
secrets to make the ill-disposed as genial gods ere they departed. Mr.
Bareaud at fifty had lived so well that he gave up walking, which did
not trouble him; but at sixty he gave up dancing, which did trouble him.
His only hope, he declared, was in Crailey Gray's promise to invent for
him: a concave partner.

There was a thin, quizzing shank of a son, Jefferson, who lived upon
quinine, ague and deviltry; and there were the two daughters, Fanchon
and Virginia. The latter was three years older than Fanchon, as dark as
Fanchon was fair, though not nearly so pretty: a small, good-natured,
romping sprite of a girl, who had handed down the heart and hand of
Crailey Gray to her sister with the best grace in the world. For she
had been the heroine of one of Mr. Gray's half-dozen or so most serious
affairs, and, after a furious rivalry with Mr. Carewe, the victory
was generally conceded to Crailey. His triumph had been of about a
fort-night's duration when Fanchon returned from St. Mary's; and,
with the advent of the younger sister, the elder, who had decided that
Crailey was the incomparable she had dreamed of since infancy, was
generously allowed to discover that he was not that vision--that she had
fallen in love with her own idea of him; whereas Fanchon cared only
that he be Craile