ou are my wife," he said in the young lady's ear, and he
held himself erect and walked with slow steps, which filled his daughter
with despair.

He seemed to take up the coquette's part for her; perhaps of the two, he
was the more gratified by the curious glances directed at those little
feet, shod with plum-colored prunella; at the dainty figure outlined by
a low-cut bodice, filled in with an embroidered chemisette, which only
partially concealed the girlish throat. Her dress was lifted by her
movements as she walked, giving glimpses higher than the shoes of
delicately moulded outlines beneath open-work silk stockings. More than
one of the idlers turned and passed the pair again, to admire or to
catch a second glimpse of the young face, about which the brown tresses
played; there was a glow in its white and red, partly reflected from the
rose-colored satin lining of her fashionable bonnet, partly due to the
eagerness and impatience which sparkled in every feature. A mischievous
sweetness lighted up the beautiful, almond-shaped dark eyes, bathed
in liquid brightness, shaded by the long lashes and curving arch of
eyebrow. Life and youth displayed their treasures in the petulant face
and in the gracious outlines of the bust unspoiled even by the fashion
of the day, which brought the girdle under the breast.

The young lady herself appeared to be insensible to admiration. Her
eyes were fixed in a sort of anxiety on the Palace of the Tuileries,
the goal, doubtless, of her petulant promenade. It wanted but fifteen
minutes of noon, yet even at that early hour several women in gala dress
were coming away from the Tuileries, not without backward glances at the
gates and pouting looks of discontent, as if they regretted the lateness
of the arrival which had cheated them of a longed-for spectacle. Chance
carried a few words let fall by one of these disappointed fair ones to
the ears of the charming stranger, and put her in a more than common
uneasiness. The elderly man watched the signs of impatience and
apprehension which flitted across his companion's pretty face with
interest, rather than amusement, in his eyes, observing her with a close
and careful attention, which perhaps could only be prompted by some
after-thought in the depths of a father's mind.

It was the thirteenth Sunday of the year 1813. In two days' time
Napoleon was to set out upon the disastrous campaign in which he was
to lose first Bessieres, and then Du