iss: "The king
can do no wrong." Mlle. Moiseney was convinced that Mlle. Moriaz could
neither do wrong nor make mistakes about anything. She saw everything
with her eyes, espoused her likes and her dislikes, her sentiments, her
opinions, her rights, and her wrongs; she lived, as it were, a reflected
existence. Every morning she said to her idol, "How beautiful we are
to-day!" precisely as the bell-ringer who, puffing out his cheeks,
cried: "We are in voice; we have chanted vespers well to-day!" M. Moriaz
excused her for finding his daughter charming, but could not so
readily approve of her upholding Antoinette's ideas, her decisions,
her prejudices. "This woman is no chaperon," said he; "she is an
admiration-point!" He would have been very glad to have routed her from
the field, and to give her place to a person of good sound sense and
judgment, one who might gain some influence over Antoinette. It would
have greatly surprised Mlle. Moiseney had he represented to her that she
lacked good sense. This good creature flattered herself that she had an
inexhaustible stock of this commodity; she placed the highest estimate
on her own judgment; she believed herself to be well-nigh infallible.
She discoursed in the tone of an oracle on future contingencies; she
prided herself on being able to divine all things, to foresee all
things, to predict all things--in a word, to be in the secret of the
gods. As her Christian name was Joan, M. Moriaz, who set little store by
his calendar, sometimes called her Pope Joan, which wounded her deeply.

Mlle. Moiseney had two weaknesses; she was a gormand, and she admired
handsome men. Let us understand the case: she knew perfectly well that
they were not created for her; that she had no attractions to offer
them; that they had nothing to give her. She admired them naively and
innocently, as a child might admire a beautiful Epinal engraving; she
would willingly have cut out their likenesses to hang on a nail on
her wall, and contemplate while rereading "Gonzalve de Cordue" and "Le
Dernier des Cavaliers," her two favourite romances. At Bergun,
during the repast, her brain had been working, and she had made two
reflections. The first was, that the trout of Albula were incomparable,
the second that the stranger seated opposite her had a remarkably
handsome head, and was altogether a fine-looking man. Several times,
with fork halfway to mouth, and nose in the air, she had forgotten
herself in her sc