CHAPTER IV.
THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
_26th September._ The chateau of Malouet is a massive and rather vulgar construction, which dates some one hundred years back.

Fine avenues, a court of honor of a handsome style, and an ancient park impart to it, however, an aspect truly seigneurial.
The old marquis came to receive me at the foot of the stoop, passed his arm under mine, and after leading me through a long maze of corridors, introduced me into a vast drawing-room, where almost complete obscurity prevailed; I could only vaguely distinguish, by the intermittent blaze of the hearth, some twenty persons of both sexes, scattered here and there in small groups.

Thanks to this blessed twilight, I effected safely my entrance, which had at a distance offered itself to my imagination, under a solemn and somewhat alarming light.

I had barely time to receive the compliment of welcome which Madame de Malouet addressed me in a feeble but penetrating voice.

She took my arm almost at once to pass into the dining-room, having resolved, it appears, to refuse no mark of consideration to a pedestrian of such surprising agility.
Once at the table and in the bright light, I was not long in discovering that my feats of the previous day had by no means been forgotten, and that I was the center of general attention; but I stood bravely this cross-fire of curious and ironical glances, intrenched on the one hand behind a mountain of flowers that ornamented the center of the table, and on the other assisted in my defensive position by the ingenious kindness of my neighbor.