ere careful not to be absent; for the most important houses on
the exchange had recourse to the immense credit, the fortune, or the
time-honored experience of Monsieur Guillaume. Still, the excellent
merchant's daughters did not benefit as much as might be supposed by the
lessons the world has to offer to young spirits. At these parties, which
were indeed set down in the ledger to the credit of the house, they wore
dresses the shabbiness of which made them blush. Their style of dancing
was not in any way remarkable, and their mother's surveillance did not
allow of their holding any conversation with their partners beyond Yes
and No. Also, the law of the old sign of the Cat and Racket commanded
that they should be home by eleven o'clock, the hour when balls and
fetes begin to be lively. Thus their pleasures, which seemed to conform
very fairly to their father's position, were often made insipid by
circumstances which were part of the family habits and principles.

As to their usual life, one remark will sufficiently paint it. Madame
Guillaume required her daughters to be dressed very early in the
morning, to come down every day at the same hour, and she ordered their
employments with monastic regularity. Augustine, however, had been
gifted by chance with a spirit lofty enough to feel the emptiness of
such a life. Her blue eyes would sometimes be raised as if to pierce
the depths of that gloomy staircase and those damp store-rooms. After
sounding the profound cloistral silence, she seemed to be listening to
remote, inarticulate revelations of the life of passion, which accounts
feelings as of higher value than things. And at such moments her cheek
would flush, her idle hands would lay the muslin sewing on the polished
oak counter, and presently her mother would say in a voice, of which
even the softest tones were sour, "Augustine, my treasure, what are
you thinking about?" It is possible that two romances discovered
by Augustine in the cupboard of a cook Madame Guillaume had
lately discharged--_Hippolyte Comte de Douglas_ and _Le Comte de
Comminges_--may have contributed to develop the ideas of the young girl,
who had devoured them in secret, during the long nights of the past
winter.

And so Augustine's expression of vague longing, her gentle voice, her
jasmine skin, and her blue eyes had lighted in poor Lebas' soul a
flame as ardent as it was reverent. From an easily understood caprice,
Augustine felt no affection for