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The music ceased, and the company crowded around the tables covered with bottles, cold meats and confections, behind which the servants hurried in confusion, not knowing how to serve so many a black glove or white hand that seized the gold-bordered plates and the little pearl knives crossed on the dishes.

I know, because I wear them myself, and I am a singularly romantic figure, whether in my rimless, my Oxford gold-bordered, or the plain gent's spectacles which I wear in the privacy of my study. Besides, everybody wears glasses nowadays. That is the point I wish to make. For commercial reasons, if for no others, authors ought to think seriously of this matter of goggling their heroes.

Chairs with enormous coats-of-arms, a vast Dresden china vase with a gilt cover to it; and in the corner a gold picture of a Saint with a little lamp before it, always kept burning night and day by the careful Var-Vara Var-Vara in her bright red gold-bordered gown, and the strange tiara on her head, decorated with its long ribbons.

Nay, when the day-star had completely disappeared, and its reflection gilded a long cloud with shining edges, their eyes dilated still more, for a man of the tribe of Benjamin, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the spectacle, beheld in it the floating gold-bordered mantle of Jehovah, and the neighbors to whom he showed it, believed him, and shared his pious excitement.

You will be convinced at once in this way of the impudent and shameless deception that they have dared to play. Where does that door lead to, Campan?" asked the king, pointing to the white, gold-bordered door, at whose side two curtains of white satin, wrought with roses, were secured. "Sire, it leads to the small reception room." "Will the queen pass that way when she comes?"

She led him into the low-ceiled parlour, the green gloom of the big hydrangea that filled the front window, and the ancient scent of the withered rose-leaves in the gorgeous china basin on the gold-bordered table-cover. There the minister, after a few kind commonplaces, sat for a moment, silently pondering how to enter upon his communication.

The figure smiled, but there was something commanding in its manner, and in the fiery eyes, which rested upon her. When quite near her, it raised its right hand with an impatient movement. Immediately her arms fell at her side, her cheeks glowed, and a bright smile lighted up her face. Then it lifted the three-cornered, gold-bordered hat which shaded its face, nodding to her.

The light-giving body from which they emanated disappeared and, in its stead, a crimson mantle, with gold-bordered, crocus-yellow edges, spread itself over the space it had left until the gleaming tints merged into the deeper hues of the violet. But the girl paid no heed to this splendid spectacle.

"Yet no one would imagine that these delicate hands could busy themselves with other things than sewing, piano-playing, and the turning over of gold-bordered leaves. Have you read the almanacs of the parliament?"

A soup, absolutely set on fire with red pepper, introduces the repast: pancakes follow, and various meats smothered with eggs or onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep roasted entire and still impaled with the spit.