and the table and the cupboards were of cedar wood. The whole house
looked like a block of solid marble, for it was covered with marble
without as well as within, and must have cost immense sums. Every
Saturday half-a-dozen servant girls, perched on ladders, washed down
these splendid walls. These girls wore wide hoops, being obliged to put
on breeches, as otherwise they would have interested the passers by in an
unseemly manner. After looking at the house we went down again, and M.
d'O---- left me alone with Esther in the antechamber, where he worked with
his clerks. As it was New Year's Day there was not business going on.

After playing a sonata, Mdlle. d'O---- asked me if I would go to a
concert. I replied that, being in her company, nothing could make me
stir. "But would you, mademoiselle, like to go?"

"Yes, I should like to go very well, but I cannot go by myself."

"If I might presume to offer to escort you . . . but I dare not think you
would accept."

"I should be delighted, and if you were to ask my father I am sure he
would not refuse his permission."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Quite sure, for otherwise he would be guilty of impoliteness, and my
father would not do such a thing. But I see you don't know the manners of
the country."

"I confess I do not:"