mple, whose age could not have been
less than seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such
as rings, bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms
shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses were well
made--or, at least, that very few of them fitted the wearers. In looking
about, I discovered the interesting girl to whom Monsieur Maillard had
presented me in the little parlor; but my surprise was great to see her
wearing a hoop and farthingale, with high-heeled shoes, and a dirty
cap of Brussels lace, so much too large for her that it gave her face a
ridiculously diminutive expression. When I had first seen her, she was
attired, most becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity,
in short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first, caused me
to recur to my original idea of the "soothing system," and to fancy that
Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive me until after dinner,
that I might experience no uncomfortable feelings during the repast,
at finding myself dining with lunatics; but I remembered having been
informed, in Paris, that the southern provincialists were a peculiarly
eccentric people, with a vast number of antiquated notions; and
then, too, upon conversing with several members of the company, my
apprehensions were immediately and fully dispelled.

The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable and of
good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about it. For example,
the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a carpet is frequently
dispensed with. The windows, too, were without curtains; the shutters,
being shut, were securely fastened with iron bars, applied diagonally,
after the fashion of our ordinary shop-shutters. The apartment, I
observed, formed, in itself, a wing of the chateau, and thus the windows
were on three sides of the parallelogram, the door being at the other.
There were no less than ten windows in all.

The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and more than
loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely barbaric. There
were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim. Never, in all my life, had
I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an expenditure of the good things of
life. There seemed very little taste, however, in the arrangements;
and my eyes, accustomed to quiet lights, were sadly offended by the
prodigious glare of a multitude of wax candles, which, in silver
candelabra, wer