"Will you allow me to introduce you to my daughter?" he said, moved
apparently by a paternal inclination to provide this young lady with
social diversion. She was standing with her mother, in one of the
paths, looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the
homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau was
hovering near, hesitating apparently between the desire to be urbane
and the absence of a pretext. "Mrs. Ruck--Miss Sophy Ruck," said my
friend, leading me up.

Mrs. Ruck was a large, plump, light-coloured person, with a smooth
fair face, a somnolent eye, and an elaborate coiffure. Miss Sophy
was a girl of one-and-twenty, very small and very pretty--what I
suppose would have been called a lively brunette. Both of these
ladies were attired in black silk dresses, very much trimmed; they
had an air of the highest elegance.

"Do you think highly of this pension?" inquired Mrs. Ruck, after a
few preliminaries.

"It's a little rough, but it seems to me comfortable," I answered.

"Does it take a high rank in Geneva?" Mrs. Ruck pursued.

"I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame," I said, smiling.

"I should never dream of comparing it to a New York boarding-house,"
said Mrs. Ruck.

"It's quite a different style," her daughter observed.