fortable.'

"In three days' time our Godefroid was comfortable. His increase of
income exactly supplied his superfluities; his material happiness was
complete.

"Suppose that it were possible to read the minds of all the young men in
Paris at one glance (as, it appears, will be done at the Day of Judgment
with all the millions upon millions that have groveled in all spheres,
and worn all uniforms or the uniform of nature), and to ask them whether
happiness at six-and-twenty is or is not made up of the following
items--to wit, to own a saddle-horse and a tilbury, or a cab, with a
fresh, rosy-faced Toby Joby Paddy no bigger than your fist, and to
hire an unimpeachable brougham for twelve francs an evening; to appear
elegantly arrayed, agreeably to the laws that regulate a man's clothes,
at eight o'clock, at noon, four o'clock in the afternoon, and in
the evening; to be well received at every embassy, and to cull the
short-lived flowers of superficial, cosmopolitan friendships; to be
not insufferably handsome, to carry your head, your coat, and your name
well; to inhabit a charming little entresol after the pattern of the
rooms just described on the Quai Malaquais; to be able to ask a party
of friends to dine at the _Rocher de Cancale_ without a previous
consultation with your trousers' pocket; never to be pulled up in any
rational project by the words, 'And the money?' and finally, to be able
to renew at pleasure the pink rosettes that adorn the ears of three
thoroughbreds and the lining of your hat?

"To such inquiry any ordinary young man (and we ourselves that are not
ordinary men) would reply that the happiness is incomplete; that it is
like the Madeleine without the altar; that a man must love and be loved,
or love without return, or be loved without loving, or love at cross
purposes. Now for happiness as a mental condition.

"In January 1823, after Godefroid de Beaudenord had set foot in the
various social circles which it pleased him to enter, and knew his
way about in them, and felt himself secure amid these joys, he saw
the necessity of a sunshade--the advantage of having a great lady to
complain of, instead of chewing the stems of roses bought for fivepence
apiece of Mme. Prevost, after the manner of the callow youngsters that
chirp and cackle in the lobbies of the Opera, like chickens in a
coop. In short, he resolved to centre his ideas, his sentiments, his
affections upon a woman, _one woman_?--LA PHAMME!