Indeed, he spoke to them of Parmentier! Dinner that evening was wildly hilarious.

The company ate ravenously.
Nana, in a state of great elevation, had a warm disagreement with her butler, an individual who had been in service at the bishop's palace in Orleans.

The ladies smoked over their coffee.

An earsplitting noise of merrymaking issued from the open windows and died out far away under the serene evening sky while peasants, belated in the lanes, turned and looked at the flaring rooms.
"It's most tiresome that you're going back the day after tomorrow," said Nana.

"But never mind, we'll get up an excursion all the same!" They decided to go on the morrow, Sunday, and visit the ruins of the old Abbey of Chamont, which were some seven kilometers distant.