"Everything is so in keeping,--the tones of color, the furniture, the general character." "But it costs a great deal; taxes are enormous," responded the excellent woman.
"Ah! taxes are high, are they ?" said the viscount, preoccupied with his own ideas.
"I don't know," replied the abbe.

"My niece manages the property of each of us." "Taxes are not of much importance to the rich," said Mademoiselle Cormon, not wishing to be thought miserly.

"As for the furniture, I shall leave it as it is, and change nothing,--unless I marry; and then, of course, everything here must suit the husband." "You have noble principles, mademoiselle," said the viscount, smiling.
"You will make one happy man." "No one ever made to me such a pretty speech," thought the old maid.
The viscount complimented Mademoiselle Cormon on the excellence of her service and the admirable arrangements of the house, remarking that he had supposed the provinces behind the age in that respect; but, on the contrary, he found them, as the English say, "very comfortable." "What can that word mean ?" she thought.

"Oh, where is the chevalier to explain it to me?
'Comfortable,'-- there seem to be several words in it.
Well, courage!" she said to herself.

"I can't be expected to answer a foreign language--But," she continued aloud, feeling her tongue untied by the eloquence which nearly all human creatures find in momentous circumstances, "we have a very brilliant society here, monsieur.