as she
leaned pensively back in her rich fauteuil, with downcast eyes,)
suspended her narrative.

"Well, sir?"

"Well, madame?"

Such was the curt and menacing greeting exchanged between the
fermier-general and his wife.

"You appear dissatisfied," he said, after an interval, and having taken
a chair.

"I _am_ so."

"This is tiresome, _ma femme_."

"Yes, insupportably; _this_, and every thing else that passes here."

"It appears to me, you are somewhat hard to please."

"Quite the reverse. I ask but to mix in human society."

"You have society enough, madame."

"I have absolutely none, sir."

"I can't say what society you enjoyed in the Parc de Charrebourg,
madame," he began, in an obvious vein of sarcasm. And as he did so, he
thought he observed her eyes averted, and her color brighten for a
moment. He did not suffer this observation to interrupt him, but he laid
it up in the charnel of his evil remembrances, and continued: "I don't
know, I say, what society you there enjoyed. It may have been very
considerable, or it may have been very limited: it was possibly very
dull, or possibly very delightful, madame. But if you _had_ any society
there _whatever_, it was private, secret; it was neither seen nor
suspected, madame, and, therefore, you must excuse me if I can't see
what sacrifice, in point of society, you have made in exchanging your
_cottage_ in the Parc de Charrebourg for a residence in the Chateau des
Anges."

"Sir, I _have_ made sacrifices--I have lost my liberty, and gained you."

"I see, my pretty wife, it will be necessary that you and I should
understand one another," he said, tranquilly, but with a gloom upon his
countenance that momentarily grew darker and darker.

"That is precisely what I desire," replied his undaunted helpmate.

"Leave us, Julie," said the fermier-general, with a forced calmness.

Julie threw an imploring glance at Lucille as she left the room, for she
held her uncle in secret dread. As she glided through the door her last
look revealed them seated at the little table; he--ugly: black, and
venomous; she--beautiful, and glittering in gay colors. It was like a
summer fly basking unconsciously within the pounce of a brown and
bloated spider.

"Depend upon it, madame, this will never do," he began.

"Never, sir," she repeated emphatically.

"Be silent, and listen as becomes you," he almost shouted, with a sudden
and incontrollable explosion of rage, while the blo