trade. As may be supposed, these
speeches did not infuse much hope into Augustine, who, during the night,
gave herself up to the first meditations of love. The events of the day
were like a dream, which it was a joy to recall to her mind. She was
initiated into the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all the ebb and flow
of feeling which could not fail to toss a heart so simple and timid as
hers. What a void she perceived in this gloomy house! What a treasure
she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to share his glory!
What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girl brought up
among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a young creature who,
in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life of elegance! A
sunbeam had fallen into the prison. Augustine was suddenly in love. So
many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbed without reflection.
At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the world and the eyes
of a young girl? She was incapable of suspecting the hard facts which
result from the union of a loving woman with a man of imagination, and
she believed herself called to make him happy, not seeing any disparity
between herself and him. To her the future would be as the present.
When, next day, her father and mother returned from the Salon, their
dejected faces proclaimed some disappointment. In the first place, the
painter had removed the two pictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost
her cashmere shawl. But the news that the pictures had disappeared from
the walls since her visit revealed to Augustine a delicacy of sentiment
which a woman can always appreciate, even by instinct.

On the morning when, on his way home from a ball, Theodore de
Sommervieux--for this was the name which fame had stamped on Augustine's
heart--had been squirted on by the apprentices while awaiting the
appearance of his artless little friend, who certainly did not know that
he was there, the lovers had seen each other for the fourth time only
since their meeting at the Salon. The difficulties which the rule of
the house placed in the way of the painter's ardent nature gave added
violence to his passion for Augustine.

How could he get near to a young girl seated in a counting-house between
two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame Guillaume? How could
he correspond with her when her mother never left her side? Ingenious,
as lovers are, to imagine woes, Theodore saw a rival in one of the
assista