s hair,--which
was gray rather than white,--and which was always dressed in "dog's
ears." To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this.

He had something of the eighteenth century about him; frivolous and
great.

In 1814 and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand,
who was still young,--he was only seventy-four,--lived in the Faubourg
Saint Germain, Rue Servandoni, near Saint-Sulpice. He had only retired
to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of
eighty.

And, on abandoning society, he had immured himself in his habits. The
principal one, and that which was invariable, was to keep his door
absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever
except in the evening. He dined at five o'clock, and after that his door
was open. That had been the fashion of his century, and he would not
swerve from it. "The day is vulgar," said he, "and deserves only a
closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the
zenith lights up its stars." And he barricaded himself against every
one, even had it been the king himself. This was the antiquated elegance
of his day.

CHAPTER VIII--TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR

We have just spoken of M. Gillenormand's two daughters. They had come
into the world ten years apart. In their youth they had borne very
little resemblance to each other, either in character or countenance,
and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible. The
youngest had a charming soul, which turned towards all that belongs to
the light, was occupied with flowers, with verses, with music, which
fluttered away into glorious space, enthusiastic, ethereal, and was
wedded from her very youth, in ideal, to a vague and heroic figure. The
elder had also her chimera; she espied in the azure some very wealthy
purveyor, a contractor, a splendidly stupid husband, a million made man,
or even a prefect; the receptions of the Prefecture, an usher in the
antechamber with a chain on his neck, official balls, the harangues
of the town-hall, to be "Madame la Prefete,"--all this had created a
whirlwind in her imagination. Thus the two sisters strayed, each in her
own dream, at the epoch when they were young girls. Both had wings, the
one like an angel, the other like a goose.

No ambition is ever fully realized, here below at least. No paradise
becomes terrestrial in our day. The younger wedded the man of her
dreams, but she died. The