without a portion. Again, it was time that they
should begin to think of economizing, to add to the estate of Fontaine,
and re-establish the old territorial fortune of the family. The Countess
yielded to such cogent arguments, as every mother would have done in her
place, though perhaps with a better grace; but she declared that Emilie,
at any rate, should marry in such a way as to satisfy the pride she had
unfortunately contributed to foster in the girl's young soul.

Thus events, which ought to have brought joy into the family, had
introduced a small leaven of discord. The Receiver-General and the young
lawyer were the objects of a ceremonious formality which the Countess
and Emilie contrived to create. This etiquette soon found even ampler
opportunity for the display of domestic tyranny; for Lieutenant-General
de Fontaine married Mademoiselle Mongenod, the daughter of a rich
banker; the President very sensibly found a wife in a young lady whose
father, twice or thrice a millionaire, had traded in salt; and the
third brother, faithful to his plebeian doctrines, married Mademoiselle
Grossetete, the only daughter of the Receiver-General at Bourges. The
three sisters-in-law and the two brothers-in-law found the high
sphere of political bigwigs, and the drawing-rooms of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, so full of charm and of personal advantages, that they
united in forming a little court round the overbearing Emilie. This
treaty between interest and pride was not, however, so firmly cemented
but that the young despot was, not unfrequently, the cause of revolts
in her little realm. Scenes, which the highest circles would not have
disowned, kept up a sarcastic temper among all the members of this
powerful family; and this, without seriously diminishing the regard they
professed in public, degenerated sometimes in private into sentiments
far from charitable. Thus the Lieutenant-General's wife, having become
a Baronne, thought herself quite as noble as a Kergarouet, and imagined
that her good hundred thousand francs a year gave her the right to be as
impertinent as her sister-in-law Emilie, whom she would sometimes wish
to see happily married, as she announced that the daughter of some peer
of France had married Monsieur So-and-So with no title to his name. The
Vicomtesse de Fontaine amused herself by eclipsing Emilie in the taste
and magnificence that were conspicuous in her dress, her furniture, and
her carriages. The satirical