CHAPTER XX.
"What elegance and grandeur wide expand, The pride of Turkey and of Persia land! Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, And couches stretch'd around in seemly band, And endless pillows rise to prop the head.
* * * * * Here languid Beauty kept her pale-faced court." THOMSON.
The female slaves who could not obtain the history of Newton immediately repaired to the chamber of their mistress, knowing that if they could succeed in raising her curiosity, they would at the same time gratify their own.

Madame de Fontanges was, as they asserted, in her chamber, or, what may now be more correctly styled, her boudoir.

It was a room about fourteen feet square, the sides of which were covered with a beautiful paper, representing portions of the history of Paul and Virginia: the floor was covered with fine matting, with here and there a small Persian carpet above it.

Small marble tables were decorated with a variety of ornaments and French perfumes, or vases filled with the splendid flowers of a tropical clime.

There was a large window at each end of the room, cut down to the ground, in the French fashion; and outside of both was a little balcony--the trellice-work covered with passion-flower and clematis.