with a low bow. "Alas, Madame, there is very little that will repay you: it is hardly more than a ruin. But if you and Miladi will indeed honour it———"
"It is a very fine place still," said the Duc de St. Louis, a little impatiently. "It has suffered in sieges; and is by so much the more interesting. For myself, I endure very much pain from having a whole house, and one built no later than 1780. My great grandfather pulled down the noble old castle, built at the same time as Château Gaillard—imagine the barbarism!—and employed the ponderous rocaille of Oppenord to replace it. It is very curious, but loss of taste in the nobles has always been followed by a revolution of the mob. The décadence always ushers in the democracy."
"We may well be threatened then in this day with universal equality!" said the Lady Hilda, hiding a very small yawn behind her fan.
"Nay, Madame," said Della Rocca. "In this day the nobles do not even do so much as to lead a wrong taste; they accept and adopt every form of it, as imposed on them by their tailors, their architects, their clubs, and their munici-
