ant to say, "I love you;" he
pressed his lips on the auburn curls of little Enguerrand where his
mother had just kissed him. Day after day he seemed more attracted
to that salon where, dressed with more care than she had ever dressed
before, she expected him. Then awoke in her the wish to please, and she
was beautiful with that beauty which is not the insipid beauty of St.
Agnes, but that which, superior to all other, is seen when the face
reflects the soul. All that winter there was a new Giselle--a Giselle
who passed away again among the shadows, a Giselle of whom everybody
said, even her husband, "Ma foi! but she is beautiful!" Oscar de
Talbrun, as he made this remark, never thought of wondering why she was
more beautiful. He was ready to take offense and was jealous by nature,
but he was perfectly sure of his wife, as he had often said. As to Fred,
the idea of being jealous of him would never have entered his mind. Fred
was a relative and was admitted to all the privileges of a cousin or a
brother; besides, he was a fellow of no consequence in any way.

While this platonic attachment grew stronger and stronger between Fred
and Giselle, assisted by the innocent complicity of little Enguerrand,
Jacqueline was discovering how hard it is for a girl of good birth, if
she is poor, to carry out her plans of honest independence. Possibly she
had allowed herself to be too easily misled by the title of "companion,"
which, apparently more cordial than that of 'demoiselle de compagnie',
means in reality the same thing--a sort of half-servile position.

Money is a touchstone which influences all social relations, especially
when on one side there is a somewhat morbid susceptibility, and on the
other a lack of good breeding and education. The Sparks, father and
daughter, Americans of the lower class, though willing to spend any
number of dollars for their own pleasure, expected that every penny
they disbursed should receive its full equivalent in service; the place
therefore offered so gracefully and spontaneously to Mademoiselle de
Nailles was far from being a sinecure. Jacqueline received her salary on
the same footing as Justine, the Parisian maid, received her wages, for,
although her position was apparently one of much greater importance and
consideration than Justine's, she was really at the beck and call of a
girl who, while she called her "darling," gave her orders and paid her
for her services. Very often Miss Nora asked