Timid, with the timidity of their second childhood, constrained and embarrassed by each other's presence, they were, nevertheless, in a little Elysium of their own creating.

They walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where it was always autumn; together and alone they entered upon the long retarded romance of their commonplace and uneventful lives.
At last that great supper was over, everything had been eaten; the enormous roast goose had dwindled to a very skeleton.

Mr.Sieppe had reduced the calf's head to a mere skull; a row of empty champagne bottles--"dead soldiers," as the facetious waiter had called them--lined the mantelpiece.

Nothing of the stewed prunes remained but the juice, which was given to Owgooste and the twins.

The platters were as clean as if they had been washed; crumbs of bread, potato parings, nutshells, and bits of cake littered the table; coffee and ice-cream stains and spots of congealed gravy marked the position of each plate.