r number of invitations; so Hortense's wedding was much talked
about.

Marshal Prince Wissembourg and the Baron de Nucingen signed in behalf
of the bride, the Comtes de Rastignac and Popinot in behalf of
Steinbock. Then, as the highest nobility among the Polish emigrants
had been civil to Count Steinbock since he had become famous, the
artist thought himself bound to invite them. The State Council, and
the War Office to which the Baron belonged, and the army, anxious to
do honor to the Comte de Forzheim, were all represented by their
magnates. There were nearly two hundred indispensable invitations. How
natural, then, that little Madame Marneffe was bent on figuring in all
her glory amid such an assembly. The Baroness had, a month since, sold
her diamonds to set up her daughter's house, while keeping the finest
for the trousseau. The sale realized fifteen thousand francs, of which
five thousand were sunk in Hortense's clothes. And what was ten
thousand francs for the furniture of the young folks' apartment,
considering the demands of modern luxury? However, young Monsieur and
Madame Hulot, old Crevel, and the Comte de Forzheim made very handsome
presents, for the old soldier had set aside a sum for the purchase of
plate. Thanks to these contributions, even an exacting Parisian would
have been pleased with the rooms the young couple had taken in the Rue
Saint-Dominique, near the Invalides. Everything seemed in harmony with
their love, pure, honest, and sincere.

At last the great day dawned--for it was to be a great day not only
for Wenceslas and Hortense, but for old Hulot too. Madame Marneffe was
to give a house-warming in her new apartment the day after becoming
Hulot's mistress _en titre_, and after the marriage of the lovers.

Who but has once in his life been a guest at a wedding-ball? Every
reader can refer to his reminiscences, and will probably smile as he
calls up the images of all that company in their Sunday-best faces as
well as their finest frippery.

If any social event can prove the influence of environment, is it not
this? In fact, the Sunday-best mood of some reacts so effectually on
the rest that the men who are most accustomed to wearing full dress
look just like those to whom the party is a high festival, unique in
their life. And think too of the serious old men to whom such things
are so completely a matter of indifference, that they are wearing
their everyday black coats; the long-married men,