The music was kept up until a late hour, for Madelon proposed tune after tune with nervous ardor when her father and brothers seemed to flag.
Nobody paid much attention to Lot; he was too constant a visitor.

He settled into a favorite chair of his near the fire, and listened with the firelight playing over his delicate, peaked face.

Now and then he coughed.
Old David Hautville, the father, stood out in front of the hearth by his great bass-viol, leaning fondly over it like a lover over his mistress.

David Hautville was a great, spare man--a body of muscles and sinews under dry, brown flesh, like an old oak-tree.

His long, white mustache curved towards his ears with sharp sweeps, like doves' wings.