t that a lame woman does not walk straight may be the glamour of
a moment, but to love her because she is lame is the deification of
her defects. In the gospel of womanhood it is written: "Blessed are the
imperfect, for theirs is the kingdom of Love." If this be so, surely
beauty is a misfortune; that fugitive flower counts for too much in
the feeling that a woman inspires; often she is loved for her beauty as
another is married for her money. But the love inspired or bestowed by a
woman disinherited of the frail advantages pursued by the sons of Adam,
is true love, the mysterious passion, the ardent embrace of souls, a
sentiment for which the day of disenchantment never comes. That woman
has charms unknown to the world, from whose jurisdiction she withdraws
herself: she is beautiful with a meaning; her glory lies in making her
imperfections forgotten, and thus she constantly succeeds in doing so.

The celebrated attachments of history were nearly all inspired by women
in whom the vulgar mind would have found defects,--Cleopatra, Jeanne
de Naples, Diane de Poitiers, Mademoiselle de la Valliere, Madame de
Pompadour; in fact, the majority of the women whom love has rendered
famous were not without infirmities and imperfections, while the greater
number of those whose beauty is cited as perfect came to some tragic end
of love.

This apparent singularity must have a cause. It may be that man lives
more by sentiment than by sense; perhaps the physical charm of beauty is
limited, while the moral charm of a woman without beauty is infinite. Is
not this the moral of the fable on which the Arabian Nights are based?
An ugly wife of Henry VIII. might have defied the axe, and subdued to
herself the inconstancy of her master.

By a strange chance, not inexplicable, however, in a girl of Spanish
origin, Madame Claes was uneducated. She knew how to read and write, but
up to the age of twenty, at which time her parents withdrew her from a
convent, she had read none but ascetic books. On her first entrance into
the world, she was eager for pleasure and learned only the flimsy art of
dress; she was, moreover, so deeply conscious of her ignorance that she
dared not join in conversation; for which reason she was supposed to
have little mind. Yet, the mystical education of a convent had one good
result; it left her feelings in full force and her natural powers of
mind uninjured. Stupid and plain as an heiress in the eyes of the world,
she