|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: The dining-room was sitting-room and drawing-room all in one for the
little family. The house was furnished very simply but tastefully;
there was nothing superfluous in it, and no trace of luxury. The
walnut-wood furniture chosen by the stranger lady was perfectly plain,
and the whole charm of the house consisted in its neatness and harmony
with its surroundings.
It was rather difficult, therefore, to say whether the strange lady
(Mme. Willemsens, as she styled herself) belonged to the upper middle
or higher classes, or to an equivocal, unclassified feminine species.
Her plain dress gave rise to the most contradictory suppositions, but
her manners might be held to confirm those favorable to her. She had
|
