at occasionally came over her at the thought of
her lonely and dependent position in the world. Isidore had few
acquaintances there, and did not care to add to their number; at first
his visits at the house of Madame de Rocheval were as frequent as he
could decorously make them. As it happened, Marguerite was more than
an ordinary proficient on the harpsichord, whilst the young marquis,
who had a singularly fine voice, and had had the advantage of the best
masters that Paris could boast of, sang with a taste and feeling seldom
met with; and this afforded a fair excuse for prolonging his visits
beyond the ordinary limits. It is like enough that, notwithstanding
the vast and absolutely impassable distance which their respective
positions would have placed between them in Old France, the most noble
and wealthy young Marquis de Beaujardin would have offered his hand to
the penniless orphan of a man who could not write the "de" of gentle
birth before his name: one untoward circumstance alone, perhaps,
prevented this; Madame de Rocheval, who was very fond of Marguerite,
could not help feeling what a masterly stroke it would be on her part
if she could but catch for her a husband of such rank and fortune, so
she at once began to do all she could to bring about the hoped-for
result. Unfortunately for all parties, madame's zeal outran her usual
discretion, and no sooner did poor Marguerite perceive, or think that
she perceived, the covert designs of her friend than her sensitive
delicacy recoiled from doing anything that might seem like aiding or
abetting such a scheme. She constrained herself to assume a cold and
formal manner, so unnatural to her that Isidore, as men are apt enough
to do, grew vexed and annoyed at a treatment which he knew was
undeserved, and soon began to think there was more affectation about
Mademoiselle Lacroix than he had at first imagined. Then he, too,
suddenly discovered from some little circumstance or other that he was
the object of a studied scheme to make a catch of him, and this
naturally irritated him still more. His pride revolted at the thought
that he who had been admired and courted by the highest and the noblest
even at the Pompadour's own magnificent fetes and receptions should be
entrapped by a mere matchmaker at an out-of-the-way little place like
this. So he put on a rather grand and haughty air the next time he
called, for which Marguerite not only thought him very silly, but even