Thompson. I call it a brilliant match for you, but you get
brilliancy without paying any tax upon it. Those things are usually a
compromise, but here you have everything, and nothing crowds anything
else out. You will be brilliantly happy as well." Newman thanked her for
her pleasant, encouraging way of saying things; no woman could encourage
or discourage better. Tristram's way of saying things was different; he
had been taken by his wife to call upon Madame de Cintre, and he gave an
account of the expedition.

"You don't catch me giving an opinion on your countess this time," he
said; "I put my foot in it once. That's a d--d underhand thing to do, by
the way--coming round to sound a fellow upon the woman you are going to
marry. You deserve anything you get. Then of course you rush and tell
her, and she takes care to make it pleasant for the poor spiteful wretch
the first time he calls. I will do you the justice to say, however,
that you don't seem to have told Madame de Cintre; or if you have she's
uncommonly magnanimous. She was very nice; she was tremendously polite.
She and Lizzie sat on the sofa, pressing each other's hands and calling
each other chere belle, and Madame de Cintre sent me with every third
word a magnificent smile, as if to give me to understand that I too was
a handsome dear. She quite made up for past neglect, I assure you; she
was very pleasant and sociable. Only in an evil hour it came into her
head to say that she must present us to her mother--her mother wished
to know your friends. I didn't want to know her mother, and I was on the
point of telling Lizzie to go in alone and let me wait for her outside.
But Lizzie, with her usual infernal ingenuity, guessed my purpose and
reduced me by a glance of her eye. So they marched off arm in arm, and
I followed as I could. We found the old lady in her arm-chair, twiddling
her aristocratic thumbs. She looked at Lizzie from head to foot; but at
that game Lizzie, to do her justice, was a match for her. My wife told
her we were great friends of Mr. Newman. The marquise started a moment,
and then said, 'Oh, Mr. Newman! My daughter has made up her mind to
marry a Mr. Newman.' Then Madame de Cintre began to fondle Lizzie again,
and said it was this dear lady that had planned the match and
brought them together. 'Oh, 'tis you I have to thank for my American
son-in-law,' the old lady said to Mrs. Tristram. 'It was a very clever
thought of yours. Be sure of my gr