the first place, there was the hall.  It was a little damp, but that didn’t matter; one wasn’t going to sleep in it.  Then came the drawing room, quite the thing, the drawing room, with its windows opening on the lawn.  Only the red upholsteries there were hideous; she would alter all that.  As to the dining room-well, it was a lovely dining room, eh?  What big blowouts you might give in Paris if you had a dining room as large as that!  As she was going upstairs to the first floor it occurred to her that she had not seen the kitchen, and she went down again and indulged in ecstatic exclamations.  Zoe ought to admire the beautiful dimensions of the sink and the width of the hearth, where you might have roasted a sheep!  When she had gone upstairs again her bedroom especially enchanted her.  It had been hung with delicate rose-colored Louis XVI cretonne by an Orleans upholsterer.  Dear me, yes!  One ought to sleep jolly sound in such a room as that; why, it was a real best bedroom!  Then came four or five guest chambers and then some splendid garrets, which would be extremely convenient for trunks and boxes.  Zoe looked very gruff and cast a frigid glance into each of the rooms as she lingered in Madame’s wake.  She saw Nana disappearing up the steep garret ladder and said, “Thanks, I haven’t the least wish to break my legs.”  But the sound of a voice reached her from far away; indeed, it seemed to come whistling down a chimney.

“Zoe, Zoe, where are you?  Come up, do!  You’ve no idea!  It’s like fairyland!”

Zoe went up, grumbling.  On the roof she found her mistress leaning against the brickwork balustrade and gazing at the valley which spread out into the silence.  The horizon was immeasurably wide, but it was now covered by masses of gray vapor, and a fierce wind was driving fine rain before it.  Nana had to hold her hat on with both hands to keep it from being blown away while her petticoats streamed out behind her, flapping like a flag.

“Not if I know it!” said Zoe, drawing her head in at once.  “Madame will be blown away.  What beastly weather!”

Madame did not hear what she said.  With her head over the balustrade she was gazing at the grounds beneath.  They consisted of seven or eight acres of land enclosed within a wall.  Then the view of the kitchen garden entirely engrossed her attention.  She darted back, jostling the lady’s maid at the top of the stairs and bursting out: 

“It’s full of cabbages!  Oh, such woppers!  And lettuces and sorrel and onions and everything!  Come along, make haste!”

The rain was falling more heavily now, and she opened her white silk sunshade and ran down the garden walks.

“Madame will catch cold,” cried Zoe, who had stayed quietly behind under the awning over the garden door.

But Madame wanted to see things, and at each new discovery there was a burst of wonderment.

“Zoe, here’s spinach!  Do come.  Oh, look at the artichokes!  They are funny.  So they grow in the ground, do they?  Now, what can that be?  I don’t know it.  Do come, Zoe, perhaps you know.”