ook me heartily by the hand.

"'She is to be married next month,' he said."

* * * * *

"Monsieur Gaston du Boys de Lucelles was a scape-grace of good family,
who, after having spent all that he had inherited from his father, and
having incurred debts by all kinds of doubtful means, had been trying to
discover some other way of obtaining money, and he had discovered this
method. He was a good-looking young fellow, and in capital health, but
fast; one of those odious race of provincial fast men, and he appeared
to me to be a sufficient sort of a husband, who could be got rid of
later, by making him an allowance. He came to the house to pay his
addresses, and to strut about before the idiot girl, who, however,
seemed to please him. He brought her flowers, kissed her hands, sat at
her feet and looked at her with affectionate eyes; but she took no
notice of any of his attentions, and did not make any distinction
between him and the other persons who were about her.

"However, the marriage took place, and you may guess how excited my
curiosity was. I went to see Bertha the next day, to try and discover
from her looks whether any feelings had been roused in her, but I found
her just the same as she was every day, wholly taken up with the clock
and dinner, while he, on the contrary, appeared really in love, and
tried to rouse his wife's spirits and affections by little endearments,
and such caresses as one bestows on a kitten. He could think of nothing
better.

"I called upon the married couple pretty frequently, and I soon
perceived that the young woman knew her husband, and gave him those
eager looks which she had hitherto bestowed only on sweet dishes.

"She followed his movements, knew his step on the stairs or in the
neighboring rooms, clapped her hands when he came in, and her face was
changed, and brightened by the flames of profound happiness, and of
desire.

"She loved him with her whole body, and with all her soul, to the very
depths of her poor, weak soul, and with all her heart, that poor heart
of some grateful animal. It was really a delightful and innocent picture
of simple passion, of carnal and yet modest passion, such as nature had
implanted into mankind, before man had complicated and disfigured it, by
all the various shades of sentiment. But he soon grew tired of this
ardent, beautiful, dumb creature, and did not spend more than an hour a
day with her, thinking it suffi