I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from a table near, endeavoured to read.

Adele brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.
"What is it, Adele ?" "Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle?
Seulement pour completer ma toilette." "You think too much of your 'toilette,' Adele: but you may have a flower." And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash.

She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full.

I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.
A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.
There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number.

Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon.