which came treading stiffly and sometimes funnily sliding along the polished floor.
Mme. Mary welcomed Mme. Wildenhoff with smiling effusion.
"I have come to call upon you with a friend of mine: Miss Dernowicz, Mme. Wieloleska," she said, introducing me. "I trust you will have no objection; I wanted to show her your greenhouse very much."
"Indeed, my dear Madame, but you are doing me a pleasure. I feel so bored in this solitude, where I see nobody at all. All day long, my husband is in the greenhouse or pottering about the hotbeds; he has engaged a new gardener from Haarlem, and it is quite out of the question getting him anywhere out of doors. If you care, we shall have a look at the greenhouse at once. I tell you, if it were not for my books and studies, I really might be tempted to make away with myself."
"And why should you not take a walk sometimes? The weather is splendid just now."
"Oh, no! My husband won't go out; and it would not be proper for a woman to go out alone. You know how uncharitable people are."
