"How wonderful!" exclaimed Madame Bastien, examining all these treasures with great curiosity and interest. "See, Frederick, here is a living book in which one can study the customs, habits, and history of this singular country, for here is also a collection of medals, coins, drawings, and manuscripts."
"Say, mother!" exclaimed Frederick, "how pleasantly and profitably one could spend the long winter evenings here in reading about China, and comparing, or rather verifying the descriptions in the book with nature, so to speak."
"M. de Pont Brillant must often visit this curious and interesting pavilion, I am sure," said Marie, turning to M. Dutilleul.
"M. le marquis has never been a victim to the Chinese craze, madame," was the reply. "He likes hunting much better. It was his great-grandfather who had this house built, because it was the fashion at that time, that is all."
Marie could not help shrugging her shoulders the least bit in the world, and exchanging a half-smile with her son, who seemed to become more and more thoughtful as he followed his mother, to whom the doctor had offered his arm to conduct her along a winding path leading from the winter-garden to a rocky grotto, lighted by large, lens-shaped pieces of blue glass inserted in the rocks, which imparted to this subterranean chamber, ornamented with beautiful sea-shells and coral, a pale light similar to that which pervades the depths of the ocean.
"We are going to the home of the water-nymphs now, are we not?" asked Madame Bastien, gaily, as she began the descent. "Isn't some mermaid coming to welcome us upon the threshold of her watery empire?"
"Nothing of the kind," replied the doctor. "This subterranean passage, carpeted, as you see, and always kept warm during the winter, leads to the château; for you must have noticed that all the different buildings we have seen are connected by covered passages, so in winter one can go from one to the other without fearing rain or cold."
In fact, this grotto was connected, by a spiral staircase, with the end of a long gallery called the Guards' Hall, and which in years gone by had probably served for that purpose. Ten windows of stained glass, with the Pont Brillant coat-of-arms emblazoned upon them, lighted this immense room finished in richly carved oak, with a sky ceiling divided by heavy groins of carved oak.