e air. This woman is
natural. There is no effort about her; she is aiming at no effect; her
feelings are shown simply, because they are true. Frank herself, she
does not wound the vanity of others; she accepts men as God made them;
pitying the vicious, forgiving defects and absurdities, comprehending
all ages, and vexed by nothing, because she has had the sense and tact
to foresee all. Tender and gay, she gratifies before she consoles. You
love her so well that if this angel did wrong you would be ready to
excuse her. If, for your happiness, you have met with such a woman, you
know Madame Firmiani.

After Monsieur de Bourbonne had talked with her for ten minutes, sitting
beside her, his nephew was forgiven. He perceived that whatever the
actual truth might be, the relation between Madame Firmiani and Octave
covered some mystery. Returning to the illusions that gild the days
of youth, and judging Madame Firmiani by her beauty, the old gentleman
became convinced that a woman so innately conscious of her dignity as
she appeared to be was incapable of a bad action. Her dark eyes told of
inward peace; the lines of her face were so noble, the profile so pure,
and the passion he had come to investigate seemed so little to oppress
her heart, that the old man said to himself, while noting all the
promises of love and virtue given by that adorable countenance, "My
nephew is committing some folly."

Madame Firmiani acknowledged to twenty-five. But the Practicals proved
that having married the invisible Firmiani (then a highly respectable
individual in the forties) in 1813, at the age of sixteen, she must be
at least twenty-eight in 1825. However the same persons also asserted
that at no period of her life had she ever been so desirable or so
completely a woman. She was now at an age when women are most prone to
conceive a passion, and to desire it, perhaps, in their pensive hours.
She possessed all that earth sells, all that it lends, all that
it gives. The Attaches declared there was nothing of which she was
ignorant; the Contradictors asserted that there was much she ought to
learn; the Observers remarked that her hands were white, her feet small,
her movements a trifle too undulating. But, nevertheless, individuals of
all species envied or disputed Octave's happiness, agreeing, for once
in a way, that Madame Firmiani was the most aristocratically beautiful
woman in Paris.

Still young, rich, a perfect musician, intelligent,