excessively jealous of her rights. A
daughter is the sole issue of the marriage of M. Eustache Moutonnet and
Mademoiselle Barbe Desormeaux. She is now eighteen years old, and at
eighteen the young ladies in Paris are generally pretty far advanced.
But Eugenie has been educated severely--and although possessed of a good
deal of spirit, is timid, docile, submissive, and never ventures on a
single observation in presence of her parents. She has cleverness,
grace, and sensibility, but she is ignorant of the advantages she has
received from nature--her sentiments are as yet concentrated at the
bottom of her heart. She is not coquettish--or rather she scarcely
ventures to give way to the inclination so natural to women, which leads
them to please and to be pretty. But Eugenie has no need of those little
arts, so indispensable to others, or to have recourse to her mirror
every hour. She is well made, and she is beautiful; her eyes are soft
and expressive, her voice is tender and agreeable, her brow is shadowed
by dark locks of hair, her mouth furnished with fine white teeth. In
short, she has that nameless something about her, which charms at first
sight, which is not always possessed by greater beauties and more
regular features. We now know all the Moutonnet family; and since we
have gone so far, let us make acquaintance with the rest of the party
who have come to the wood of Romainville to celebrate the Saint
Eustache.

"The little woman who rushed so vigorously to the assistance of M.
Moutonnet, is the wife of a tall gentleman of the name of Bernard, who
is a toyman in the Rue St Denis. M. Bernard plays the amiable and the
fool at the same time. He laughs and quizzes, makes jokes, and even
puns; he is the wit of the party. His wife has been rather good-looking,
and wishes to be so still. She squeezes in her waist till she can hardly
breathe, and takes an hour to fit her shoes on--for she is determined to
have a small foot. Her face is a little too red; but her eyes are very
lively, and she is constantly trying to give them as mischievous an
expression as she can. Madame Bernard has a great girl of fifteen, whom
she dresses as if she were five, and treats occasionally to a new doll,
by way of keeping her a child. By the side of Madame Bernard is seated a
young man of eighteen, who is almost as timid as Eugenie, and blushes
when he is spoken to, though he has stood behind a counter for six
months. He is the son of a friend o