isn't such very good fun, after all. And how
becoming that headdress was to her!"

"It was really magnificent: you know it came from Persia."

"Did it, really? From Persia? I heard it came from--you know the place,
ever so far off, where the colonies are. And how about her marriage?"

"It's broken off: she said no, and it's all settled."

"But the trousseau? Mamma saw the three cashmere shawls, three wonders!
One had red ground with little figures on it--you know the sort they're
wearing now: that shawl was really eloquent. I think that sort of thing
is like music, it delights one so."

"That was very fine--three cashmeres, and diamonds too, and she said
no?"

"She said no, and she was right, for it seems he limped frightfully."

"Who did?"

"The gentleman, of course."

"But, my dear girl, people always give three cashmeres. Only think a
minute: the long cashmere for calls in winter--well, that's one; then
you must have a square one: it would kill you to wear a long cashmere
in hot weather; and then you could not refuse a third to go to the bath
or to mass in--well, that makes three, don't you see? I would not be
married with fewer. No, thank you, I wouldn't go about looking like a
chambermaid. No, indeed I wouldn't."

"Did the gentleman limp very badly? For, after all, he was a consul."

"Oh, as to that, his position is a magnificent one. It seems that in the
country where he is consul people are carried in palanquins."

"That's the least thing they can do for lame people. As for me, I think
she has done quite right. I have a horror of deformed people: one is
never sure that it may not be something catching. Do you remember Sister
Adelaide at the convent, who had one leg shorter than the other? Well, I
wouldn't have sat down in her chair for a hundred thousand francs."

"What would you have done if you had had to marry her?"

"How silly you are!--Don't look over there: I see M. Pincette coming to
ask us to dance. The more I see of him, the more I detest him. He is
stupid, he is fair, his whiskers are too large, he doesn't dance in
time: he has no attractions. Don't you think he looks like the Abbe
Julien, who used to hear our catechisms, and who was always saying, 'Not
another word, my children'?"

"Yes, he does look like him, especially when he is waltzing: he has the
same eyes. As for me, I don't like a man who looks like a priest. That
is not saying anything against priests, my dear. In the first p