painters whom Monsieur Grindot, the architect, told me to expect."

He whistled twice at the end of his whip; the concierge came.

"Take these gentlemen to rooms 14 and 15. Madame Moreau will give you
the keys. Go with them to show the way; make fires there, if
necessary, and take up all their things. I have orders from Monsieur
le comte," he added, addressing the two young men, "to invite you to
my table, messieurs; we dine at five, as in Paris. If you like
hunting, you will find plenty to amuse you; I have a license from the
Eaux et Forets; and we hunt over twelve thousand acres of forest, not
counting our own domain."

Oscar, the painter, and Mistigris, all more or less subdued, exchanged
glances, but Mistigris, faithful to himself, remarked in a low tone,
"'Veni, vidi, cecidi,--I came, I saw, I slaughtered.'"

Oscar followed the steward, who led him along at a rapid pace through
the park.

"Jacques," said Moreau to one of his children whom they met, "run in
and tell your mother that little Husson has come, and say to her that
I am obliged to go to Les Moulineaux for a moment."

The steward, then about fifty years old, was a dark man of medium
height, and seemed stern. His bilious complexion, to which country
habits had added a certain violent coloring, conveyed, at first sight,
the impression of a nature which was other than his own. His blue eyes
and a large crow-beaked nose gave him an air that was the more
threatening because his eyes were placed too close together. But his