tranquillity of that noble and intensely
active mind.

Her grandfather looked upon her as a strange being, altogether out of
place in his family. As a child she annoyed him with her great, honest
eyes, her straightforwardness on all occasions, and also because he
did not find in her a second edition of his own passive and submissive
daughter.

"That child will be a proud chit and an original, like her father," he
would say in his ugly moods.

How much better he liked that little Chebe girl who used to come now and
then and play in the avenues at Savigny! In her, at least, he detected
the strain of the common people like himself, with a sprinkling of
ambition and envy, suggested even in those early days by a certain
little smile at the corner of the mouth. Moreover, the child exhibited
an ingenuous amazement and admiration in presence of his wealth, which
flattered his parvenu pride; and sometimes, when he teased her, she
would break out with the droll phrases of a Paris gamine, slang redolent
of the faubourgs, seasoned by her pretty, piquant face, inclined to
pallor, which not even superficiality could deprive of its distinction.
So he never had forgotten her.

On this occasion above all, when Sidonie arrived at Savigny after her
long absence, with her fluffy hair, her graceful figure, her bright,
mobile face, the whole effect emphasized by mannerisms suggestive of the
shop-girl, she produced a decided sensation. Old Gardinois, wondering
greatly to see a tall young woman in place of the child he was expecting
to see, considered her prettier and, above all, better dressed than
Claire.

It was a fact that, when Mademoiselle Chebe had left the train and was
seated in the great wagonette from the chateau, her appearance was not
bad; but she lacked those details that constituted her friend's chief
beauty and charm--a distinguished carriage, a contempt for poses, and,
more than all else, mental tranquillity. Her prettiness was not unlike
her gowns, of inexpensive materials, but cut according to the style of
the day-rags, if you will, but rags of which fashion, that ridiculous
but charming fairy, had regulated the color, the trimming, and the
shape. Paris has pretty faces made expressly for costumes of that sort,
very easy to dress becomingly, for the very reason that they belong to
no type, and Mademoiselle Sidonie's face was one of these.

What bliss was hers when the carriage entered the long avenue, bordered
with