large chairs near the hearth, the evenings being sufficiently cold to make a fire pleasant. She was talking, though in a low voice, with much warmth, and Charles was listening with an appearance of pleased attention—that is, he was kept awake very agreeably. When the dialogue began, both had determined to speak on the same subject; and what the one wanted to learn, the other wished to tell.
Madame de Soissons possessed, in its perfection, that rare and graceful gift of narrative, which skims so lightly over the surface, and yet leaves nothing unmarked—the keen vein of ridicule mingled with the touch of deeper feeling, and a sort of personal flattery thrown into the whole—something that brings the things described home to your individual experience; and, finally, which forces one idea prominently forward—the attention devoted to yourself, in so much pains being taken for your amusement. She was relating the history of Francesca, and endeavouring to render it as interesting as possible. She took it up from its earliest period, painting her as the lonely child in the deserted palazzo, yet careful beyond her years for the sake of the strange old astrologer, whose wild and wayward habits certainly lost nothing by Marie's description.
