Good-day, Lydia.

The master is not here?
And you, old friend, what have you done with Fanny ?" She distributed these simple "good-days" with a grace so delicate, a smile so rare for each one--tender for her daughter, spirituelle for the author, grateful for Madame Gorka, amicably surprised for Chapron and Madame Maitland, familiar and confiding for her old friend, as she called the Baron.

She was evidently the soul of the small party, for her mere presence seemed to have caused animation to sparkle in every eye.
All talked at once, and she replied, as they walked toward the carriages, which waited in a court of honor capable of holding seventy gala chariots.

One after the other these carriages advanced.

The horses pawed the ground; the harnesses shone; the footmen and coachmen were dressed in perfect liveries; the porter of the Palais Castagna, with his long redingote, on the buttons of which were the symbolical chestnuts of the family, had beneath his laced hat such a dignified bearing that Julien suddenly found it absurd to have imagined an impassioned drama in connection with such people.