Madame Durmaitre, who doubtless owes the unalterable serenity of her soul
to the consciousness of her supreme beauty, had been content with smiling
with disdainful nonchalance. She dropped into the arm-chair, which I had
given up to her.

"What gloomy weather!" she said to me; "really, this autumnal sky weighs
upon the soul. I was looking out of the window; all the trees look like
cypress-trees, and the whole country looks like a graveyard. It would
really seem that----"

"No, ah! no. I beg of you, Nathalie," interrupted Madame de Palme, "say no
more. That's enough fun before breakfast. You'll make yourself sick."

"Well, now! my dear Bathilde, you must really have slept very badly last
night," said the beautiful widow.

"I, my dear? ah! do not say that. I had celestial, ecstatic dreams;
ecstasies, you know. My soul held converse with other souls--like your own
soul. Angels smiled at me through the foliage of the cypress-trees--and so
forth, and so forth!"

Madame Durmaitre blushed slightly, shrugged her shoulders, and took up the
review I had laid upon the mantel-piece.

"By the bye, Nathalie," resumed Madame de Palme, "do you know who we are
going to have at dinner to-day, in the way of men?" The good-natured
Nathalie mentioned Monsieur de Breuilly, two or three other married
gentlemen, and the parish priest.

"Then I am going away after breakfast," said the Little Countess, looking