s, dear, I must say it. Monsieur Cleremont and I have always been
very poor, and we never permitted ourselves these luxuries, any more
than we kept a great house and a fine equipage, and so we economize
in our morals, as in our means, doing what rich folk might call little
shabbinesses; but, on the whole, managing to live, and not unhappily
either."

"And papa?"

"Papa has a fine estate, wants for nothing, and can give himself every
good quality he has a fancy for."

"By this theory, then, it is only rich people are good?"

"Not exactly. I would rather state it thus,--the rich are as good as
they like to be; the poor are as good as they 're able."

"What do you say, then, to Mr. Eccles: he 's not rich, And I 'm sure
he's good?"

"Poor Mr. Eccles!" said she, with a merry laughter, in which a something
scornful mingled, and she hurried away.

CHAPTER X. PLANNING PLEASURE.

It was my father's pleasure to celebrate my sixteenth birthday with
great splendor. The whole house was to be thrown open; and not only the
house, but the conservatory and the grounds were to be illuminated. The
festivities were to comprise a grand dinner and a reception afterwards,
which was to become a ball, as if by an impromptu.

As the society of the Villa habitually was made up of a certain number
of intimates, relieved, from time to time, by such strangers as
were presented, and as my father never dined out, or went into the
fashionable world of the place, it was somewhat of a bold step at once
to invite a number of persons with whom we had no more than bowing
acquaintance, and to ask to his table ministers, envoys, court
officials, and grand chamberlains for the first time. It was said, I
know not how truthfully, that Cleremont did his utmost to dissuade him
from the project at first, by disparaging the people for whom he was
putting himself to such cost, and, finding this line of no avail, by
openly saying that what between the refusals of some, the excuses of
others, and the actual absence of many whose presence he was led to
expect, my father was storing up for himself an amount of disappointment
and outrage that would drive him half desperate. It was not, of course,
very easy to convey this to my father. It could only be done by a
dropping word or a half-expressed doubt. And when the time came to make
out the lists and issue the invitations, no real step had been taken to
turn him from his plan.

The same rumor which ascri