Chateau of Prince Polignac | Page 5

butter, and perhaps a boiled egg.
It comprises all the requisites for a composite dinner, excepting soup;
and as one gets farther south in France, this meal is called dinner. It is,
however, eaten without any prejudice to another similar and somewhat
longer meal at six or seven o'clock, which, when the above name is
taken up by the earlier enterprise, is styled supper.
The dejeuner, or dinner, at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, on the
morning in question, though very elaborate, was not a very gay affair.

There were some fourteen persons present, of whom half were residents
in the town, men employed in some official capacity, who found this to
be the cheapest, the most luxurious, and to them the most comfortable
mode of living. They clustered together at the head of the table, and as
they were customary guests at the house, they talked their little talk
together--it was very little--and made the most of the good things
before them. Then there were two or three commis-voyageurs, a chance
traveller or two, and an English lady with a young daughter. The
English lady sat next to one of the accustomed guests; but he, unlike
the others, held converse with her rather than with them. Our story at
present has reference only to that lady and to that gentleman.
Place aux dames. We will speak first of the lady, whose name was Mrs.
Thompson. She was, shall I say, a young woman of about thirty- six. In
so saying, I am perhaps creating a prejudice against her in the minds of
some readers, as they will, not unnaturally, suppose her, after such an
announcement, to be in truth over forty. Any such prejudice will be
unjust. I would have it believed that thirty-six was the outside, not the
inside of her age. She was good-looking, lady-like, and considering that
she was an Englishwoman, fairly well dressed. She was inclined to be
rather full in her person, but perhaps not more so than is becoming to
ladies at her time of life. She had rings on her fingers and a brooch on
her bosom which were of some value, and on the back of her head she
wore a jaunty small lace cap, which seemed to tell, in conjunction with
her other appointments, that her circumstances were comfortable.
The little girl who sat next to her was the youngest of her two daughters,
and might be about thirteen years of age. Her name was Matilda, but
infantine circumstances had invested her with the nickname of Mimmy,
by which her mother always called her. A nice, pretty, playful little girl
was Mimmy Thompson, wearing two long tails of plaited hair hanging,
behind her head, and inclined occasionally to be rather loud in her
sport.
Mrs. Thompson had another and an elder daughter, now some fifteen
years old, who was at school in Le Puy; and it was with reference to her
tuition that Mrs. Thompson had taken up a temporary residence at the
Hotel des Ambassadeurs in that town. Lilian Thompson was
occasionally invited down to dine or breakfast at the inn, and was
visited daily at her school by her mother.

"When I'm sure that she'll do, I shall leave her there, and go back to
England," Mrs. Thompson had said, not in the purest French, to the
neighbour who always sat next to her at the table d'hote, the gentleman,
namely, to whom we have above alluded. But still she had remained at
Le Puy a month, and did not go; a circumstance which was considered
singular, but by no means unpleasant, both by the innkeeper and by the
gentleman in question.
The facts, as regarded Mrs. Thompson, were as follows:- She was the
widow of a gentleman who had served for many years in the civil
service of the East Indies, and who, on dying, had left her a
comfortable income of--it matters not how many pounds, but
constituting quite a sufficiency to enable her to live at her ease and
educate her daughters.
Her children had been sent home to England before her husband's death,
and after that event she had followed them; but there, though she was
possessed of moderate wealth, she had no friends and few
acquaintances, and after a little while she had found life to be rather
dull. Her customs were not those of England, nor were her propensities
English; therefore she had gone abroad, and having received some
recommendation of this school at Le Puy, had made her way thither. As
it appeared to her that she really enjoyed more consideration at Le Puy
than had been accorded to her either at Torquay or Leamington, there
she remained from day to day. The total payment required at the Hotel
des Ambassadeurs was but six