The sale was to take place on the 16th.

A day's interval had been left between the visiting days and the sale, in order to give time for taking down the hangings, curtains, etc.

I had just returned from abroad.

It was natural that I had not heard of Marguerite's death among the pieces of news which one's friends always tell on returning after an absence.
Marguerite was a pretty woman; but though the life of such women makes sensation enough, their death makes very little.

They are suns which set as they rose, unobserved.