painting materials scattered about; the piano open and quantities of
music on the music-stand; miniatures, snuff-boxes and little
old-fashioned bibelots on all the tables, and an embroidery frame, of
course, in one of the windows, near it a basket filled with bright
coloured silks. The miniatures were, almost all, portraits of de
Courvals of every age and in every possible costume: shepherdesses,
court ladies of the time of Louis XV, La Belle Ferronnière with the
jewel on her forehead, men in armour with fine, strongly marked faces;
they must have been a handsome race. It is a pity there is no son to
carry on the name. One daughter-in-law had no children; the other one,
born an American, Mary Ray of New York, had only one daughter, the
present Princesse de Poix, to whom Pinon now belongs.

We played a little; four hands--the classics, of course. All French
women of that generation who played at all were brought up on strictly
classical music. She had a pretty, delicate, old-fashioned touch; her
playing reminded me of Madame A.'s.

When it was too dark to see any more we sat by the fire and talked
till the others came in. She asked a great deal about my new life in
Paris--feared I would find it stiff and dull after the easy happy
family life I had been accustomed to. I said it was very different, of
course, but there was much that was interesting, only I did not know
the people well enough yet to appreciate the stories they were always
telling about each other, also that I had made several "gaffes" quite
innocently. I told her one which amused her very much, though she
could not imagine how I ever could have said it. It was the first year
of my marriage; we were dining in an Orleanist house, almost all the
company Royalists and intimate friends of the Orléans Princes, and
three or four moderate, _very_ moderate Republicans like us. It was