had seen the major-general do at the officers' mess at the citadel, and
said in English:

"Heretics are damn' funny. I will go and call. I have also some Irish
whiskey. He will like that; and pipes--pipes, plenty of them!"

The pipe he was smoking at the moment had been given to him by the major-
general, and he polished the silver ferrule, with its honourable
inscription, every morning of his life.

On the morning of the second day after Ferrol came, he was carried off to
the Manor Casimbault to see the painful alterations which were being made
there under the direction of Madame Lavilette. Sophie, who had a good
deal of natural taste, had in the old days fought against her mother's
incongruous ideas, and once, when the rehabilitation of the Manor
Casimbault came up, she had made a protest; but it was unavailing, and it
was her last effort. The Manor Casimbault was destined to be an example
of ancient dignity and modern bad taste. Alterations were going on as
Madame Lavilette, Ferrol and Christine entered.

For some time Ferrol watched the proceedings with a casual eye, but
presently he begged his hostess that she would leave the tall, old oak
clock where it was in the big hall, and that the new, platter-faced
office clock, intended for its substitute, be hung up in the kitchen.
He eyed the well-scraped over-mantel askance and saw, with scarcely
concealed astonishment, a fine, old, carved wooden seat carried out of
doors to make room for an American rocking-chair. He turned his head
away almost in anger when he saw that the beautiful brown wainscoting was
being painted an ultra-marine blue. His partly disguised astonishment
and dissent were not lost upon the crude but clever Christine. A new