Not that she thought I was looking well--a point unlikely to engage her interest--but she considered me dressed "convenablement," "decemment," and la Convenance et la Decence were the two calm deities of Madame's worship.

She even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a sarcasm on the other teachers (whom she had just been complimenting to their faces).

"Nothing so absurd," she said, "as for des femmes mures 'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'-- quant a la.

St.Pierre, elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingenue." Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a pleasure in betaking myself--not to the garden, where servants were busy propping up long tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in readiness for the collation but to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet, cool, and clean; their walls fresh stained, their planked floors fresh scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh gathered adorning the recesses in pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying the great windows.
Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the others, and taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key, a volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read.

The glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush bees murmured busy and happy.