to suit her. She instructs her cook in the art of making pot-au-feu repeatedly, and shows the chambermaid how the furniture must be dusted. She runs upstairs and down. She has hardly sat down and put her hand upon the newspaper or the knitting that she has just begun when she begins to worry about the fate of the ragout simmering in the casserole, or the store of pears in the cellar. Lise might have made too big a fire, and Pier would forget to turn the fruit that had begun to spot on one side. But she is never ill-tempered; the good lady is vigilant without being a meddler. She gives largely to the poor of the parish, but does not tolerate the waste of the slightest crumb of bread.
And how beautifully she maintains Daelmans-Deynze's old house! In the great room into which you have been led, you are not struck by new-fangled styles, a flaming new set of furniture, paintings to which the fashionable decorator has just given the last hasty touch. No; it is the substantial and simple room which you imagined in seeing its owners. Their furniture is not the companion of a day, bought in a moment of caprice and to be replaced by another whim. There are solid sofas and massive mahogany arm-chairs in Empire style, upholstered in pistache green velour. The upholstery is renewed from time to time with jealous care, and the time-honored wood is conscientiously polished; they are kept on like the old household servants, and will never be replaced.
The gilding of the mirrors, the picture frames and the chandeliers has long ago lost its native gleam, and the colors of the thick Smyrna carpet have been eaten away by the sunlight, but the old family portraits gain in intimacy and in a patriarchal poetry in their dulled
