mass, but she was afraid of losing the
delight of her dear Adolphe's first glance, in case he arrived at
early dawn. Her chambermaid--who respectfully left her mistress alone
in the dressing-room where pious and pimpled ladies let no one enter,
not even their husbands, especially if they are thin--her chambermaid
heard her exclaim several times, "If it's your master, let me know!"

The rumbling of a vehicle having made the furniture rattle, Caroline
assumed a mild tone to conceal the violence of her legitimate
emotions.

"Oh! 'tis he! Run, Justine: tell him I am waiting for him here."
Caroline trembled so that she dropped into an arm-chair.

The vehicle was a butcher's wagon.

It was in anxieties like this that the eight o'clock mass slipped by,
like an eel in his slime. Madame's toilet operations were resumed, for
she was engaged in dressing. The chambermaid's nose had already been
the recipient of a superb muslin chemise, with a simple hem, which
Caroline had thrown at her from the dressing-room, though she had
given her the same kind for the last three months.

"What are you thinking of, Justine? I told you to choose from the
chemises that are not numbered."

The unnumbered chemises were only seven or eight, in the most
magnificent trousseau. They are chemises gotten up and embroidered
with the greatest care: a woman must be a queen, a young queen, to
have a dozen. Each one of Caroline's was trimmed with valenciennes
round the bottom, and still more coquettishly garnished about the
neck. This feature of our manners will perhaps serve to suggest a
suspicion, in the masculine world, of the domestic drama revealed by
this exceptional chemise.

Caroline had put on a pair of Scotch thread stockings, little prunella
buskins, and her most deceptive corsets. She had her hair dressed in
the fashion that most became her, and embellished it with a cap of the
most elegant form. It is unnecessary to speak of her morning gown. A
pious lady who lives at Paris and who loves her husband, knows as well
as a coquette how to choose those pretty little striped patterns, have
them cut with an open waist, and fastened by loops to buttons in a way
which compels her to refasten them two or three times in an hour, with
little airs more or less charming, as the case may be.

The nine o'clock mass, the ten o'clock mass, every mass, went by in
these preparations, which, for women in love, are one of their twelve
labors of Hercules.