and
always will be, a favorite performance.

In a few minutes Diane and Amelie had exchanged the elegant disorder
of the fair Diane's bedroom for the severe but dignified and splendid
austerity of the Duchesse de Grandlieu's rooms.

She, a Portuguese, and very pious, always rose at eight to attend
mass at the little church of Sainte-Valere, a chapelry to Saint-Thomas
d'Aquin, standing at that time on the esplanade of the Invalides. This
chapel, now destroyed, was rebuilt in the Rue de Bourgogne, pending the
building of a Gothic church to be dedicated to Sainte-Clotilde.

On hearing the first words spoken in her ear by Diane de Maufrigneuse,
this saintly lady went to find Monsieur de Grandlieu, and brought him
back at once. The Duke threw a flashing look at Madame Camusot, one of
those rapid glances with which a man of the world can guess at a whole
existence, or often read a soul. Amelie's dress greatly helped the Duke
to decipher the story of a middle-class life, from Alencon to Mantes,
and from Mantes to Paris.

Oh! if only the lawyer's wife could have understood this gift in dukes,
she could never have endured that politely ironical look; she saw the
politeness only. Ignorance shares the privileges of fine breeding.

"This is Madame Camusot, a daughter of Thirion's--one of the Cabinet
ushers," said the Duchess to her husband.

The Duke bowed with extreme politeness to the wife of a legal official,
and his face became a little less grave.

The Duke had rung for his valet, who now came in.

"Go to the Rue Saint-Honore: take a coach. Ring at a side door, No. 10.
Tell the man who opens the door that I beg his master will come here,
and if the gentleman is at home, bring him back with you.--Mention my
name, that will remove all difficulties.

"And do not be gone more than a quarter of an hour in all."

Another footman, the Duchess' servant, came in as soon as the other was
gone.

"Go from me to the Duc de Chaulieu, and send up this card."

The Duke gave him a card folded down in a particular way. When the two
friends wanted to meet at once, on any urgent or confidential business
which would not allow of note-writing, they used this means of
communication.

Thus we see that similar customs prevail in every rank of society,
and differ only in manner, civility, and small details. The world of
fashion, too, has its argot, its slang; but that slang is called style.

"Are you quite sure, madame, of the existen