Several ladies had formed a circle round the hearth, and Mme du Joncquoy, whose brother, a diplomat, had just fulfilled a mission in the East, was giving some details about the court of Nazr-ed-Din.
"Are you out of sorts, my dear ?" asked Mme Chantereau, the wife of an ironmaster, seeing the countess shivering slightly and growing pale as she did so.
"Oh no, not at all," replied the latter, smiling.

"I felt a little cold.
This drawing room takes so long to warm." And with that she raised her melancholy eyes and scanned the walls from floor to ceiling.

Her daughter Estelle, a slight, insignificant-looking girl of sixteen, the thankless period of life, quitted the large footstool on which she was sitting and silently came and propped up one of the logs which had rolled from its place.

But Mme de Chezelles, a convent friend of Sabine's and her junior by five years, exclaimed: "Dear me, I would gladly be possessed of a drawing room such as yours! At any rate, you are able to receive visitors.

They only build boxes nowadays.