The morning was charming--it was in the middle of August--and the approach of autumn was already felt, which enhances the beauty of all things.

The sky was flecked with small gray clouds; a light, silvery mist hung on the brow of the hills; in two places the Seine appeared glittering in the sunshine.

Abel breakfasted in the open air; while eating he gazed on the sky and on the great garden-plain extending at his feet, covered with vegetables, grape-vines, and asparagus, interspersed with fruit-trees.
The wooded hills bordering it formed an admirable frame.

In his present mood Count Larinski was charmed with the landscape, which was at once grand and smiling.

Then he questioned himself as to how much a bed of asparagus would yield at the gates of Paris, and, having finished his calculation, he surveyed with the eye of a poet the heather and broom that surrounded him.