noon
We sat by the magic window , and had for our entertainment , now the Verrerie de Verny le Moustier in its present state , all full of modern life , color , and sound , steam and gas , as she had seen it a few hours before ; now the old château as it was a hundred years ago ; dim and indistinct , as though seen by nearsighted eyes at the close of a gray , misty afternoon in late autumn through a blurred window-pane , with busy but silent shadows moving about -- silent , because at first we could not hear their speech ; it was too thin for our mortal ears , even in this dream within our dream ! Only Gatienne , the authoritative and commanding Gatienne , was faintly audible . Then we would go down and mix with them . Thus , at one moment , we would be in the midst of a charming old-fashioned French family group of shadows : Gatienne , with her lovely twin-daughters Jeanne and Anne , and her gardeners round her , all trailing young peach and apricot trees against what still remained of the ancient buttresses and walls of the Abbaye de Verny le Moustier -- all this more than a hundred years ago -- the pale sun of a long-past noon casting the fainter shadows of these faint shadows on the shadowy garden-path . Then , presto ! Changing the scene as one changes a slide in a magic-lantern , we would skip a century , and behold ! Another French family group , equally charming , on the self-same spot , but in the garb of to-day , and no longer shadowy or mute by any means .