likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of
the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the
martyrs as burning above a slow fire, while wearing smiles of purely
animal content, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, this lady's
sufferings were doubtless an invisible discipline, the hair shirt which
her hardened cuticle felt only to be a pleasurable itching.

"_Voila, mesdames!_" It was with a magnificent gesture that madame opened
doors and windows. The drama of her life was forgotten for the moment
in the conscious pride of presenting us with such a picture as her gay
little house offered.

Inside and out, summer and the sun were blooming and shining with
spendthrift luxuriance. The salon opened directly on the garden; it
would have been difficult to determine just where one began and the
domain of the other ended, with the pinks and geraniums that nodded in
response to the peach and pear blossoms in the garden. A bit of faded
Aubusson and a print representing Madame Geoffrin's salon in full
session, with a poet of the period transporting the half-moon grouped
listeners about him to the point of tears, were evidences of the
refined tastes of our landlady in the arts; only a sentimentalist would
have hung that picture in her salon. Other decorations further proved
her as belonging to both worlds. The chintzes gay with garlands of
roses, with which walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the
mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, possessed of a hidden
passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a
_prie-dieu_, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that
this excellent _bourgeoise_ had thriftily made her peace with Heaven.
It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane.