"Garret?" inquired Eve, so quickly as to interrupt the speaker.
"Fire," coolly returned her cousin. "The garret is now much too good for them; that part of the house being converted into sleeping-rooms for the maids. Mademoiselle Annette would go into hysterics, were she to see the works of art, that satisfied the past generation of masters in this country, in too close familiarity with her Louvre-ized eyes."
"Point du tout, monsieur," said Mademoiselle Viefville, innocently; "Annette a du gout dans son metier sans doute, but she is too well bred to expect impossibilités. No doubt she would have conducted herself with decorum."
Every body laughed, for much light-heartedness prevailed at that board, and the conversation continued.
"I shall be satisfied if Annette escape convulsions," Eve added, "a refined taste being her weakness; and, to be frank, what I recollect of the works you mention, is not of the most flattering nature."
"And yet," observed Sir George, "nothing has surprised me more than the respectable state of the arts of engraving and painting in this country. It was unlooked for, and the pleasure has probably been in proportion to the surprise."
"In that you are very right, Sir George Templemore," John Effingham answered; "but the improvement is of very recent date. He who remembers an American town half a century ago, will see a very different thing in an American town of to-day; and this is equally true of the arts you mention, with the essential difference that the latter are taking a right direction under a proper instruction, while the former are taking a wrong direction, under the influence of money, that has no instruction. Had I left much of the old furniture, or any of the old pictures in the Wigwam, we should have had the bland features of Miss Effingham in frowns, instead of bewitching smiles, at this very moment."
"And yet I have seen fine old furniture in this country, cousin Jack."
"Very true; though not in this part of it. The means of conveyance were wanting half a century since, and few people risk finery of any sort on corduroys. This very house had some respectable old things, that were brought here by dint of money, and they still remain; but the eighteenth century in general, may be set down as a very dark antiquity in all this region."
When the repast was over, Mr. Effingham led his guests and daughter through the principal apartments, sometimes commending, and sometimes laughing, at the conceits of his kinsman. The library was a good sized room; good sized at least for a country in which domestic architecture, as well as public architecture, is still in the chrysalis state. Its walls were hung with an exceedingly pretty gothic paper, in green, but over each window was a chasm in the upper border; and as this border supplied the arches, the unity of the entire design was broken in no less than four places, that being the precise number of the windows. The defect soon attracted the eye of Eve, and she was not slow in demanding an explanation.