It would be impossible to imagine a stronger contrast than that of this Gothic room with the lady in the rose-colored gown who had just entered it so precipitately.  The fire upon the hearth threw a warm light over the old portraits, and it was heightened by the heavy, red damask curtains which hung by the windows.  The light sometimes softened, sometimes revivified by some sudden flash of the flames, glanced over the scowling faces and red beards, enlivening the eyes and giving a supernatural animation to those lifeless canvases.  One would have said that the cold, grave faces looked with curiosity at the young woman with graceful movements and cool garments, whom Aladdin’s genii seemed to have transported from the most elegant boudoir on the Chaussee d’Antin, and thrown, still frightened, into the midst of this strange assembly.

“You are crazy, Clemence, to leave that window open!” said at this moment an old voice issuing from an armchair placed in a corner near the fireplace.

The person who broke the charm of this silent scene was a woman of sixty or seventy years of age, according to the gallantry of the calculator.  It was easy to judge that she was tall and thin as she lay, rather than sat, in her chair with its back lowered down.  She was dressed in a yellowish-brown gown.  A false front as black as jet, surmounted by a cap with poppy-colored ribbons, framed her face.  She had sharp, withered features, and the brilliancy of her primitive freshness had been converted into a blotched and pimpled complexion which affected above all her nose and cheek-bones, but whose ardor had been dimmed only a trifle by age.  There was something about the whole face as crabbed, sour, and unkind as if she had daily bathed it in vinegar.  One could read old maid in every feature!  Besides, a slight observation of her ways would have destroyed all lingering doubt in this respect.

A large, coffee-colored pug-dog was lying before the fire.  This interesting animal served as a footstool for his mistress, stretched in her easy-chair, and recalled to mind the lions which sleep at the foot of chevaliers in their Gothic tombs.  As a pug-dog and an old maid pertain to each other, it was only necessary, in order to divine this venerable lady’s state, to read the name upon the golden circlet which served as a collar for the dog:  “Constance belongs to Mademoiselle de Corandeuil.”

Before the younger lady, who was leaning upon the back of a chair, seeming to breathe with difficulty, had time to reply, she received a second injunction.

“But, aunt,” said she, at last, “it was a horrible crash!  Did you not hear it?”

“I am not so deaf as that yet,” replied the old maid.  “Shut that window; do you not know that currents of air attract lightning?”

Clemence obeyed, dropping the curtain to shut out the flashes of lightning which continued to dart through the heavens; she then approached the fireplace.