erful portrait
of her, as the wife of M. de Nailles, to the Salon--a portrait that the
richer electors of Grandchaux, who had voted for her husband and who
could afford to travel, gazed at with satisfaction, congratulating
themselves that they had a deputy who had married so pretty a woman. It
even seemed as if the beauty of Madame de Nailles belonged in some sort
to the arrondissement, so proud were those who lived there of having
their share in her charms.

Another portrait--that of M. de Nailles himself--was sent down to
Limouzin from Paris, and all the peasants in the country round were
invited to come and look at it. That also produced a very favorable
impression on the rustic public, and added to the popularity of their
deputy. Never had the proprietor of Grandchaux looked so grave, so
dignified, so majestic, so absorbed in deep reflection, as he looked
standing beside a table covered with papers--papers, no doubt, all
having relation to local interests, important to the public and to
individuals. It was the very figure of a statesman destined to high
dignities. No one who gazed on such a deputy could doubt that one day he
would be in the ministry.

It was by such real services that Marien endeavored to repay the
friendship and the kindness always awaiting him in the small house in
the Parc Monceau, where we have just seen Jacqueline eagerly offering
him some spiced cakes. To complete what seemed due to the household
there only remained to paint the curiously expressive features of the
girl at whom he had been looking that very day with more than ordinary
attention. Once already, when Jacqueline was hardly out of baby-clothes,
the great painter had made an admirable sketch of her tousled head,
a sketch in which she looked like a little imp of darkness, and this
sketch Madame de Nailles took pains should always be seen, but it bore
no resemblance to the slender young girl who was on the eve of becoming,
whatever might be done to arrest her development, a beautiful young
woman. Jacqueline disliked to look at that picture. It seemed to do her
an injury by associating her with her nursery. Probably that was
the reason why she had been so pleased to hear Hubert Marien say
unexpectedly that she was now ready for the portrait which had been
often joked about, every one putting it off to the period, always
remote, when "the may-pole" should have developed a pretty face and
figure.

And now she was disquieted lest the