Now as Julia sat there drinking tea from the quaintest of old-fashioned china cups, and eating slices of thin bread and butter, and cakes that almost melted in her mouth, she could not help wondering what her friends and her cousin would say to see her actually seated in the house which most of them considered absolutely impossible to enter. In spite of the fact that the curtains at one or two windows had been raised a little the room was still rather dark, and as she glanced about, Julia could see the pictures and furniture rather indistinctly. She noticed, however, that one wall was quite covered with large pieces of tapestry representing medieval battle scenes, and that on the opposite wall on either side of a long mirror there hung a number of family portraits. One of these in a heavily gilded oval frame represented a young girl of perhaps eighteen years, whose features, for some reason or other, seemed strangely familiar; in fact there was something in the bright and earnest face that drew Julia's eyes so constantly towards it that she began to fear lest Madame du Launy would think it strange that she should pay such close attention to it.