The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code

The Marchioness of Tremblay was speedily installed at The Hague in the residence of Monsieur Tilly, where she occupied on the first floor a vast apartment furnished with the luxury peculiar to those republican navigators, who, trafficking with the whole world, gathered in their homes most precious fabrics, porcelains and furnitures from China and the East Indies, vases from Japan, lacquer cabinets and folding-screens from Coromandel, carpets from Smyrna, glasswork from Venice. All these rare curiosities were found in profusion at Monsieur Tilly's residence. Still suffering from the fatigue of her rough passage, the Marchioness was partly stretched upon a reclining chair, placed near a glass door that opened upon a balcony, sheltered from the rays of the sun and the public gaze by a sort of netting striped red and white. Mademoiselle Plouernel sat not far from her aunt, who, continuing the conversation that the two had been carrying on, proceeded to say:

"You will have to admit, my