ENTOMOLOGICAL MYSTERIES 

 been responsible for the little quails in the soup, did upset 

 the equanimity of the pretty hostess. 

 " To think/' she cried, " that I should invite my best 

 friend here, to starve or poison her! . . . And that 

 unknown beasts should get into her drinking-water! 

 II have been here every summer for eleven years and I 

 have never seen a beast like that ! " 



She thought we had dreamt the first monster. The second 

 was carried in to her, with its horrible transparent legs 

 bristling over the tumbler. She surveyed it hopelessly. 

 " // ne manquait plus que cela ! " 



Vet one looks back on it all with a kind of tenderness. It 

 was all so picturesque ! What a dwelling might have been 

 made of that antique castle by anyone who had the money 

 and the art to spend it ! 



But, alas ! ... In the great stone bedchambers where we 

 lodged there were blinds with Swiss scenes depicted in the 

 most vivid colours : a mountain maiden and a Mont Blanc, 

 and a torrent upon each. . . . Incongruity could go no 

 farther- except perhaps in the billiard-room, which had 

 been done up by the Principe and was always shown off 

 with great pomp. It was a splendid vaulted apartment, 

 dating from the Barbarossa period / there were four deep 

 niches hewn out of the stone : well, in two of these were 

 placed large Chinese Mandarins, with heads that nodded 

 if anyone could reach high enough to set them going / and, 

 in the other two were plaster statues of the worst garden 

 description: Flora with a basket, Ceres with a lumpy 

 sheaf! 



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