“Dear me, I was young then,” continued Gaga.  “But never mind, I remember it all.  I saw her pass.  They said she was disgusting in her own house, but, driving in her carriage, she was just smart!  And the stunning tales about her!  Dirty doings and money flung about like one o’clock!  I don’t wonder at all that she’s got a fine place.  Why, she used to clean out a man’s pockets as soon as look at him.  Irma d’Anglars still in the land of the living!  Why, my little pets, she must be near ninety.”

At this the ladies became suddenly serious.  Ninety years old!  The deuce, there wasn’t one of them, as Lucy loudly declared, who would live to that age.  They were all done for.  Besides, Nana said she didn’t want to make old bones; it wouldn’t be amusing.  They were drawing near their destination, and the conversation was interrupted by the cracking of whips as the drivers put their horses to their best paces.  Yet amid all the noise Lucy continued talking and, suddenly changing the subject, urged Nana to come to town with them all to-morrow.  The exhibition was soon to close, and the ladies must really return to Paris, where the season was surpassing their expectations.  But Nana was obstinate.  She loathed Paris; she wouldn’t set foot there yet!

“Eh, darling, we’ll stay?” she said, giving Georges’s knees a squeeze, as though Steiner were of no account.

The carriages had pulled up abruptly, and in some surprise the company got out on some waste ground at the bottom of a small hill.  With his whip one of the drivers had to point them out the ruins of the old Abbey of Chamont where they lay hidden among trees.  It was a great sell!  The ladies voted them silly.  Why, they were only a heap of old stones with briers growing over them and part of a tumble-down tower.  It really wasn’t worth coming a couple of leagues to see that!  Then the driver pointed out to them the countryseat, the park of which stretched away from the abbey, and he advised them to take a little path and follow the walls surrounding it.  They would thus make the tour of the place while the carriages would go and await them in the village square.  It was a delightful walk, and the company agreed to the proposition.

“Lord love me, Irma knows how to take care of herself!” said Gaga, halting before a gate at the corner of the park wall abutting on the highroad.

All of them stood silently gazing at the enormous bush which stopped up the gateway.  Then following the little path, they skirted the park wall, looking up from time to time to admire the trees, whose lofty branches stretched out over them and formed a dense vault of greenery.  After three minutes or so they found themselves in front of a second gate.  Through this a wide lawn was visible, over which two venerable oaks cast dark masses of shadow.  Three minutes farther on yet another gate afforded them an extensive view of a great avenue, a perfect corridor of shadow, at the end of which a bright spot of sunlight