in order, she
said, to make a selection among all this pell-mell. She then took upon her
lap the bundles of grass and flowers, and began throwing out everything
that appeared to her of inferior quality. She handed over to Lucan, seated
a step or two from her, whatever she thought fit to retain for the final
bouquet, justifying gravely her decision upon each plant that she
examined:

"You, my dear, you are too thin! you're pretty, but too short! you, you
smell bad! you, you look stupid."

Then, turning abruptly into another train of thought, which was not at
first without causing some uneasiness to Monsieur de Lucan:

"It was you, wasn't it, who advised Pierre to speak to me with firmness?"

"I?" said Lucan, "what an idea!"

"It must have been you. You," she went on again, speaking to her flowers,
"you look sickly, good-night! Yes, it must have been you. One might think
you quite meek, to look at you, whereas, on the contrary, you are very
harsh, very tyrannical."

"Ferocious!" said Lucan.

"At any rate, I have no fault to find with you for that. You were right;
poor Pierre is too weak with me. I like a man to be a man. And yet he is
very brave, is he not?"

"Extremely so," said Lucan; "he is capable of the most energetic actions."

"He looks like it, and yet with me--he is an angel."

"It is because he loves you."

"Quite probable!--some of those flowers are so curious. Look at this one;
it looks like a little lady!"

"I hope that you love him too, my good Pierre?"

"Quite probable, too!"

After a pause, she shook her head:

"And why should I love him?"

"What a question!" said Lucan. "Why, because he is perfectly worthy of
being loved; because he has every quality; intelligence, heart, and even
beauty--finally, because you have married him."

"Monsieur de Lucan, will you allow me to tell you something
confidentially?"

"I beg you to do so."

"That trip to Italy has been very injurious to me."

"In what way?"

"Before my marriage, I did not think myself positively ugly, but I fancied
myself at least quite plain."

"Yes! Well?"

"Well! while traveling about Italy, among all those souvenirs and those
marbles, so much admired, I made strange reflections. I said to myself
that, after all, these princesses and goddesses of the ancient world, who
drove shepherds and kings mad, for whose sake wars broke out and
sacrileges were committed, were persons pretty much after my own style.
Then occurred