not all true, strictly true!"

"I am saying nothing—?"

"Because you are overcome, crushed by the evidence. You say nothing now, but what did you say last year? Last year! When I think that we could have been married since last year! A year, a whole year lost! And it was so long, and it could have been so short! Well, he was there, at the Fresnes' ball. He condescended to do me the honor of dancing three times with me. I came home intoxicated, absolutely intoxicated with joy. But that great happiness did not last long, for this is what that Gontran the next day said to his friend Robert d'Aigremont, who told his sister Gabrielle, who repeated it to me, that he saw clearly that they wished to marry him to his cousin Marceline. I had, the day before, literally thrown myself into his arms; he had thought right, from pure goodness of heart, to show some pity for the love of the little school-girl, so he had resolved to dance with me; but he had done, quite done—he wouldn't be caught again. He would keep carefully away from coming-out balls; they were too dangerous a form of gayety. Marriage did not tempt him in the least. He had not had enough of a bachelor's life yet—besides, he knew of nothing more absurd than those marriages between cousins. The true pleasure of marriage, he said, must be to put into one's life something new and unexpected, and to call by her first name, all at once, on Tuesday morning, a person whom one didn't so call Monday night. But a person whom one already knew well, where would be the pleasure? He made a movement, Aunt Louise; did you see?"

"I saw—"

"He recognized the phrase."

"True. I remember—"

"Ah! but you did not say that phrase only—you said all the others. But that is nothing as yet, Aunt Louise. Do you know what was his principal objection to a marriage with me? Do you know what he told Robert? That he had seen me in evening-dress the night before for the first time, and that I was too thin! Too thin! Ah! that was a cruel blow to me! For it was true. I was thin. The evening after Gabrielle had told me that awful fact, that evening in undressing I looked at my poor little shoulders, with their poor little salt-cellars, and I had a terrible spasm of sorrow—a flood of tears that wouldn't stop—a torrent, a real torrent; and then mamma appeared. I was alone, disrobed, hair flying, studying my shoulders, deploring their meagreness—a true picture of despair! Mamma took me in her arms. 'My angel, my poor dear, what is the matter?' I answered only by sobbing. 'My child, tell me all.' Mamma was very anxious, but I could not speak; tears choked my voice. 'My dearest, do you wish to kill me?' So to reassure mamma I managed to say between my sobs: 'I am too thin, mamma; last night Gontran thought me too thin!' At that mamma began to laugh heartily; but as she was good-humored that evening, after laughing she explained to me that she, at seventeen, had been much thinner than I, and she promised me in the most solemn manner that I should grow stouter. Mamma spoke true; I have fattened up. Will you have the goodness, sir, to declare to our aunt that the salt-cellars have entirely disappeared, and that you cannot have against me, in that respect, any legitimate cause of complaint?"

"I will declare so very willingly; but you will permit me to add—"

"I will permit you no such thing. I have the floor, let me speak; but you will soon have a chance to justify yourself. I intend to put you through a little cross-questioning."

"I'll wait, then—"

"Yes, do. So last spring I began my first campaign. I do not know, Aunt Louise, what the customs were in your time, but I know that to-day, at the present time, the condition of young girls is one of extreme severity. We are kept confined, closely confined, till eighteen, for mamma was very indulgent in bringing me out when I was only seventeen; but mamma is goodness itself, and then she isn't coquettish for a sou—she didn't mind admitting that she had a marriageable daughter. All mothers are not like that, and I know some who are glad to put off the public and official exhibition of their poor children so as to gain a year. At the same time that they race at Longchamps and Chantilly the great fillies of the year, they take from their boxes the great heiresses of the year who are ripe for matrimony, and in a series of white balls given for that purpose, between Easter Sunday and the Grand Prix, they are made to take little trial gallops before connoisseurs. They have to work rapidly and find a buyer before the Grand Prix; for after that all is up, the young girls are packed back to their governesses, dancing-masters, and literary professors. The campaign is over. That is all for the year. They are not seen again, the poor things, till after Lent. So mamma took me last year to a dozen large balls, which were sad and sorrowful for me. He was not there! He didn't wish to marry! He told it to every one insolently, satirically. He would never, never, never marry! He told it to me."

"At your mother's request."

"Yes, that is true. I know since that it was at mamma's petition that he talked that way; she hoped it would prevent my being stubborn in my craze for him."

"Craze!" exclaimed Aunt Louise.

"Excuse me, Aunt Louise, it is a word of to-day."

"And means—"

"It means a sort of unexplainable, absurd, and extravagant love that comes without its being possible to know why—in short, Aunt Louise, exactly the love I have for him."

"Much obliged! But you do not tell everything. You do not say that your mother desired your marriage with Courtalin—"

"Yes, of course; mamma was quite right. M. de Courtalin has a thousand sterling merits that you have not—that you will never have; and then M. de Courtalin had a particularly good point in mamma's eyes: he did not find me too thin, and he asked for my hand in marriage. One day about four o'clock (that was the 2d of June last year) mamma came into my room with an expression on her face I had never seen before. 'My child,' she said—'my dear child!' She had no need to finish; I had understood. M. de Courtalin all the evening before, at the Princess de Viran's, had hovered about me, and the next day his mother had come to declare to mamma that her son knew of nothing more delightful than my face. I answered that I knew of nothing less delightful than M. de Courtalin's face. I added that, besides, I was in no hurry to marry. Mamma tried to make me hear reason. I was going to let slip an admirable chance. The Duke of Courtalin was the target of all the ambitious mothers—a great name, a great position, a great fortune! I should deeply regret some day to have shown such disdain for advantages like these, etc. And to all these things, which were so true and sensible, I could find only one word to say: his name, Gontran, Gontran, Gontran! Gontran or the convent, and the most rigorous one of all, the Carmel, in sackcloth and ashes! Oh, Aunt Louise, do look at him! He listens to all this with an unbearable little air of fatuity."

"You have forbidden me to speak."

"True. Don't speak; but you have deserved a little lesson in modesty and humility. Good gracious! you think perhaps it was for your merits that I chose you, insisted on you. You would be far from the mark, my poor dear. It is, on the contrary, because of your want of merit. Now, as to M. de Courtalin. Why, there is a man of merit! I had, from morning to night, M. de Courtalin's merit dinned into my ears, and that was why I had taken a dislike to him. What I dreaded more than anything for a husband was what is called a superior man; and mamma went the wrong way to work to win me over to her candidate when she said to me: 'He is a very intelligent, very serious, very deep-thinking, and very distinguished man; he has spent his youth honorably; he has been a model son, and would make a model husband.' It made me shiver to hear mamma talk so. I know nothing more awful than people who are always, always right; who, under all circumstances, give