lace, a
man ought to have brown moustaches: without them he is not worth looking
at. Have you seen my brother's moustaches since he left Saint-Cyr? That
is the kind of moustaches I like--pointed, pointed and waxed. I used to
do them for him last summer, and I fully understand them."

"Ernest is a fine-looking young man; and then he's so strong."

"I hate a Hercules. M. de Saint-Flair is not handsome, is he? Well, I
can see very well how he fascinated Adele with his pale face, thin hair
and his look of illness."

"Your M. de Saint-Flair looks as if he were just getting over a fever.
When he is sitting round in the corners I am always tempted to offer him
a bowl of gruel."

"Oh, that's all very well, but as for distinction, I don't see any one
who comes up to him. And then, too, they say he writes poetry."

"Still, I must say I prefer M. de P----."

"What an idea! M. de P----! He's a perfect barrel, and besides he's
forty-six or forty-eight years old."

"Well, my dear, a man has to be as old as that to be able to offer a
woman an acceptable position. It's not at all bad to be the wife of a
banker."

At this moment the music began, and the men came forward to ask my
little neighbors to dance. They accepted languidly, with a
half-indifferent air. The gentlemen placed their opera-hats on the
chairs the ladies had left, and they all advanced, talking, to join the
dancers. I followed them with my eyes through the crowd. Each abandoned
herself with charming grace to her partner's arm, turning her head a
little to one side, her hair floating on the waves of the waltz. Perhaps
there was exaggerated ease and a trace of childish awkwardness in their
manner. In ten minutes they came back to their places, out of breath,
but with bright eyes. They took up their fans again, and while fanning
themselves went on with their conversation.

"That gentleman dances very well, but he's a queer creature: he talked
to me about geography. Do you know the principal town in the department
of the Eastern Pyrenees?"

"No I have forgotten. Dear me! how warm I am! I danced with that partner
of yours the other evening: he talked about geography to me too. Isn't
it strange that some partners always say the same thing over and over
again?"

"Oh, there is mamma making me a sign that it is time to go home. Oh
dear! no indeed! It will be like the other evening, when we should have
gone to bed as early as the hens if mamma hadn't been asked for