A Parisian Romance — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A PARISIAN ROMANOE. 207 CHAPTER XIV. ILLUSIVE HOPES. Doctor Chesnel was right when he said that he could not understand why it was that people laughed whenever AsniereS was mentioned. A prejudice does exist against the town among the Parisians, but upon what this prejudice is based, it is difficult to say. Certainly it is not a fashionable place, but situated as it is on the banks of the Seine, and within easy distance of the metropolis, it offers many attractions as a place of residence. No more charming place of retreat from the bustle and turmoil of the city could be imagined than the villa which the doctor had purchased, just outside of the town onthe banks of the river. The house itself was of medium size, painted white, and over- run with clematis; the rooms were bright and sunny, and furnished with all sorts of queer odds and ends of furniture and bric-a-brac which Ches- nel had picked up from time to time. The chief beauty of the place, however, was the garden, with its parterres of brilliant old-fashioned flowers, and its magnificent old trees, through the branches of which could be caught glimpses of the placid river and the meadows beyond, . Gomicbookssco in