CHAPTER X


The visitors were welcomed and brought in. They were delighted to find
themselves again in the same house and in the same rooms where in early
times they had passed many happy days, but which they had not seen for a
long time. Their friends too were very glad to see them. The Count and
the Baroness had both those tall fine figures which please in middle
life almost better than in youth. If something of the first bloom had
faded off them, yet there was an air in their appearance which was
always irresistibly attractive. Their manners too were thoroughly
charming. Their free way of taking hold of life and dealing with it,
their happy humor, and apparent easy unembarrassment, communicated
itself at once to the rest; and a lighter atmosphere hung about the
whole party, without their having observed it stealing on them.

The effect made itself felt immediately on the entrance of the
new-comers. They were fresh from the fashionable world, as was to be
seen at once, in their dress, in their equipment, and in everything
about them; and they formed a contrast not a little striking with our
friends, their country style, and the vehement feelings which were at
work underneath among them. This, however, very soon disappeared in the
stream of past recollection and present interests, and a rapid, lively
conversation soon united them all. After a short time they again
separated. The ladies withdrew to their own apartments, and there found
amusement enough in the many things which they had to tell one another,
and in setting to work at the same time to examine the new fashions, the
spring dresses, bonnets, and such like; while the gentlemen were
employing themselves looking at the new traveling chariots, trotting out