as
well as great grasp of intellect. Yet, as you see, he likes his
opposites sometimes, Miss Harz," and he laid his hand proudly on his
own manly breast.

Talking thus in that large, low, scantily-furnished parlor, with its
split-bottomed chairs, in primitive frames (and in somewhat strange
contrast to its well-polished mahogany tables, dark with time, and walls
adorned with good engravings), with its floor freshly scoured and
sanded, while a simple deal stand in the centre bore a vase filled with
the rarest and most exquisite wild-flowers I had ever seen (from the
gorgeous amaryllis and hibiscus of these regions, down to wax-like
blossoms of fragile delicacy and beauty, whose very names I knew not),
and its many small diamond-paned casement-windows, all neatly curtained
with coarse white muslin bordered with blue, time passed unconsciously
until the noonday meal was announced.

We followed the Mercury of the establishment, a grave-looking little
yellow boy, who seemed to have grown prematurely old, from his constant
companionship, probably, with his preceptor and mistress, into a long,
low apartment in the rear of the dwelling, where a table was spread for
our party, with a damask cloth and napkins, decorated china and
cut-glass, that proved Madame Grambeau's personal superintendence; and
which elicited from Major Favraud, as he entered, a long, low whistle of
approval and surprise, and the exclamation "Heh! madame! you are
overwhelming us to-day with your magnificence."

I was amused with the response. "Sit down, Victor Favraud, and eat your
dinner Christian-like, without remarks! You have never got over the
spoiling you, received when you lay wounded under this roof. I shall
indulge you no longer." Shaking her long forefinger at him. "Your
familiarity needs to be checked." Her manner of grave and kindly irony
removed all impression of rebuke from this speech, which Major Favraud
received very coolly, spoiled child that he really was, rubbing his
hands as he took the foot of the table. At the sight of the _bouilli_
before him, from which a savory steam ascended to his epicurean
nostrils, he said, notwithstanding: "Soup and _bouilli_ too! Ah, madame,
I see why you absented yourself so cruelly this morning. You have been
engaged in good works!"

"Only the sauces, Favraud!--_seulement les sauces_."

"The sauces--it's just that!--Ude is a mere charlatan in comparison,"
turning to me. "Miss Harz, you never tasted an