d sense was incontestable, magnificent. She took an
affectionate, indulgent view of most of the persons mentioned, and yet
her tone was far from being vapid or vague. Madame de Brives usually
remarked that they were coming very soon again to see her, she did them
so much good. 'The freshness of your judgment--the freshness of your
judgment!' she repeated, with a kind of glee, and she narrated that
Eleonore (a personage unknown to Raymond) had said that she was a woman
of Plutarch. Mrs. Temperly talked a great deal about the health of their
friends; she seemed to keep the record of the influenzas and neuralgias
of a numerous and susceptible circle. He did not find it in him quite to
agree--the Marquise dropping the statement into his ear at a moment when
their hostess was making some inquiry of Mademoiselle Bourde--that she
was a nature absolutely marvellous; but he could easily see that to
world-worn Parisians her quiet charities of speech and manner, with
something quaint and rustic in their form, might be restorative and
salutary. She allowed for everything, yet she was so good, and indeed
Madame de Brives summed this up before they left the table in saying to
her, 'Oh, you, my dear, your success, more than any other that has ever
taken place, has been a _succes de bonte_! Raymond was greatly amused at
this idea of Cousin Maria's _succes de bonte_: it seemed to him
delightfully Parisian.

Before dinner was over she inquired of him how he had got on 'in his
profession' since they last met, and he was too proud, or so he thought,
to tell her anything but the simple truth, that he had not got on very
well. If he was to ask her again for Dora it would be just as he was, an
honourable but not particularly successful man, making no show of lures
and bribes. 'I am not a remarkably good painter,' he said. 'I judge
myself perfectly. And then I have been handicapped at home. I have had a
great many serious bothers and worries.'

'Ah, we were so sorry to hear about your dear father.'

The tone of these words was kind and sincere; still Raymond thought that
in this case her _bonte_ might have gone a little further. At any rate
this was the only allusion that she made to his bothers and worries.
Indeed, she always passed over such things lightly; she was an optimist
for others as well as for herself, which doubtless had a great deal to
do (Raymond indulged in the reflection) with the headway she made in a
society tired of its ow