making heavy shadows on the trees and mansions, lit her cheek and
Greek-knotted hair on the side next me with a glamour so that her head
and shoulders shone softly in it like a bust of Venus.

Picault's was an extensive family mansion of sandstone, built thirty
years before for one of the wealthiest merchants of Montreal. It was on
a corner.

One end rose into a rococo tower, lit then with the curious kind of
clearness produced by a half-moon's light. In the centre, before the
hospital door, projected a pillared portico, under which our carriage
drove, and at the other end lurked the shades of a massive gate-way with
cobbled road leading through. The carriage-road past the front was
bordered by lilacs in bloom--on the one side, as we went through, all
shadows, on the other faintly colored, mingling their fragrance with
that of huge rose-bushes.

The doors were thrown open, and we saw a great staircase in a wide hall
hung with colored lights, and entering passed into one of the most
lavish of interiors. As I looked around the dressing-room to which
Chinic and myself were shown and saw the windows stacked with tropical
plants, the colored candles set about the walls in silver sconces; the
bijou paintings and the graceful carving of the furniture; the deep
blending of tints and shades in the carpets, curtains and ornaments, I
felt another new experience--the sensation of luxury--and dropping back
in an easy chair, asked my companion:

"Chinic, what does Picault do?"

"Ma foi, I do not pretend to say," replied the young Frenchman, half