s you know. His fortune, that supreme
consideration, spoke, indeed, sufficiently loud. With these arguments,
--a marriage, without stooping, with the Count de Fischtaminel, his
having thirty thousand a year, and a home at Paris--you were strongly
armed against your poor daughter. Besides, Monsieur de Fischtaminel is
good looking for a man of thirty-six years; he received the cross of
the Legion of Honor from Napoleon upon the field of battle, he is an
ex-colonel, and had it not been for the Restoration, which put him
upon half-pay, he would be a general. These are certainly extenuating
circumstances.

"Many women consider that I have made a good match, and I am bound to
confess that there is every appearance of happiness,--for the public,
that is. But you will acknowledge that if you had known of the return
of my Uncle Cyrus and of his intention to leave me his money, you
would have given me the privilege of choosing for myself.

"I have nothing to say against Monsieur de Fischtaminel: he does not
gamble, he is indifferent to women, he doesn't like wine, and he has
no expensive fancies: he possesses, as you said, all the negative
qualities which make husbands passable. Then, what is the matter with
him? Well, mother, he has nothing to do. We are together the whole
blessed day! Would you believe that it is during the night, when we
are the most closely united, that I am the most alone? His sleep is my
asylum, my liberty begins when he slumbers. This state of siege will
yet make me sick: I am never alone. If Monsieur de Fischtaminel were
jealous, I should have a resource. There would then be a struggle, a
comedy: but how could the aconite of jealousy have taken root in his
soul? He has never left me since our marriage. He feels no shame in
stretching himself out upon a sofa and remaining there for hours
together.

"Two felons pinioned to the same chain do not find time hang heavy:
for they have their escape to think of. But we have no subject of
conversation; we have long since talked ourselves out. A little while
ago he was so far reduced as to talk politics. But even politics are
exhausted, Napoleon, unfortunately for me, having died at St. Helena,
as is well known.

"Monsieur de Fischtaminel abhors reading. If he sees me with a book,
he comes and says a dozen times an hour--'Nina, dear, haven't you
finished yet?'

"I endeavored to persuade this innocent persecutor to ride out every
day on horseback, and I allege