e Balzac.

A DAUGHTER OF EVE

CHAPTER I. THE TWO MARIES

In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-past
eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the fireplace of
a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade, with shimmering
reflections, which French industry has lately learned to fabricate. Over
the doors and windows were draped soft folds of blue cashmere, the tint
of the hangings, the work of one of those upholsterers who have
just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded with turquoise, and
suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung from the centre of
the ceiling. The same system of decoration was followed in the smallest
details, and even to the ceiling of fluted blue silk, with long bands
of white cashmere falling at equal distances on the hangings, where
they were caught back by ropes of pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick
as turf, of a gray ground with blue posies, covered the floor. The
furniture, of carved ebony, after a fine model of the old school,
gave substance and richness to the rather too decorative quality, as
a painter might call it, of the rest of the room. On either side of a
large window, two etageres displayed a hundred precious trifles, flowers
of mechanical art brought into bloom by the fire of thought. On
a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble were figures in old Dresden,
shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate bouquets in their hands, German
fantasticalities surrounding a platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques.
Above it sparkled the brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in
ebony, with figures carved in relief, evidently obtained from some
former royal residence. Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic
product of a hot-house, pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of
botany.

In this cold, orderly boudoir, where all things were in place as if
for sale, no sign existed of the gay and capricious disorder of a happy
home. At the present moment, the two young women were weeping. Pain
seemed to predominate. The name of the owner, Ferdinand du Tillet, one
of the richest bankers in Paris, is enough to explain the luxury of the
whole house, of which this boudoir is but a sample.

Though without either rank or station, having pushed himself forward,
heaven knows how, du Tillet had married, in 1831, the daughter of
the Comte de Granville, one of the greatest names in the French
magistracy,--a man who became peer of Fran