obedience to the laws
of their constitution. But on the brink of the gulf of prostitution in
Paris, the young girl of sixteen, beautiful and pure as the Madonna,
had met with Castanier. The old dragoon was too rough and homely to
make his way in society, and he was tired of tramping the boulevard at
night and of the kind of conquests made there by gold. For some time
past he had desired to bring a certain regularity into an irregular
life. He was struck by the beauty of the poor child who had drifted by
chance into his arms, and his determination to rescue her from the life
of the streets was half benevolent, half selfish, as some of the
thoughts of the best of men are apt to be. Social conditions mingle
elements of evil with the promptings of natural goodness of heart, and
the mixture of motives underlying a man's intentions should be
leniently judged. Castanier had just cleverness enough to be very
shrewd where his own interests were concerned. So he concluded to be a
philanthropist on either count, and at first made her his mistress.

"Hey! hey!" he said to himself, in his soldierly fashion, "I am an old
wolf, and a sheep shall not make a fool of me. Castanier, old man,
before you set up housekeeping, reconnoiter the girl's character for a
bit, and see if she is a steady sort."

This irregular union gave the Piedmontese a status the most nearly
approaching respectability among those which the world declines to
recognize. During the first year she took the _nom de guerre_ of
Aquilina, one of the characters in _Venice Preserved_ which she had
chanced to read. She fancied that she resembled the courtesan in face
and general appearance, and in a certain precocity of heart and brain
of which she was conscious. When Castanier found that her life was as
well regulated and virtuous as was possible for a social outlaw, he
manifested a desire that they should live as husband and wife. So she
took the name of Mme. de la Garde, in order to approach, as closely as
Parisian usages permit, the conditions of a real marriage. As a matter
of fact, many of these unfortunate girls have one fixed idea, to be
looked upon as respectable middle-class women, who lead humdrum lives
of faithfulness to their husbands; women who would make excellent
mothers, keepers of household accounts, and menders of household linen.
This longing springs from a sentiment so laudable that society should
take it into consideration. But society, incorrigible a