he mother felt a secret joy in proving
under all circumstances the unbounded adoration which she felt for her
daughter. She often said:

"Pretty as she is, and rich as I shall make her, what husband will be
worthy of Micheline? But if she believes me when it is time to choose
one, she will prefer a man remarkable for his intelligence, and will
give him her fortune as a stepping-stone to raise him as high as she
chooses him to go."

Inwardly she was thinking of Pierre Delarue, who had just taken honors
at the Polytechnic school, and who seemed to have a brilliant career
before him. This woman, humbly born, was proud of her origin, and
sought a plebeian for her son-in-law, to put into his hand a golden tool
powerful enough to move the world.

Micheline was ten years old when her father died. Alas, Michel was not a
great loss. They wore mourning for him; but they hardly noticed that he
was absent. His whole life had been a void. Madame Desvarennes, it
is sad to say, felt herself more mistress of her child when she was
a widow. She was jealous of Micheline's affections, and each kiss the
child gave her father seemed to the mother to be robbed from her. With
this fierce tenderness, she preferred solitude around this beloved
being.

At this time Madame Desvarennes was really in the zenith of womanly
splendor. She seemed taller, her figure had straightened, vigorous and
powerful. Her gray hair gave her face a majestic appearance. Always
surrounded by a court of clients and friends, she seemed like a
sovereign. The fortune of the firm was not to be computed. It was said
Madame Desvarennes did not know how rich she was.

Jeanne and Micheline grew up amid this colossal prosperity. The one,
tall, brown-haired, with blue eyes changing like the sea; the other,
fragile, fair, with dark dreamy eyes. Jeanne, proud, capricious, and
inconstant; Micheline, simple, sweet, and tenacious. The brunette
inherited from her reckless father and her fanciful mother a violent and
passionate nature; the blonde was tractable and good like Michel, but
resolute and firm like Madame Desvarennes. These two opposite natures
were congenial, Micheline sincerely loving Jeanne, and Jeanne feeling
the necessity of living amicably with Micheline, her mother's idol,
but inwardly enduring with difficulty the inequalities which began to
exhibit themselves in the manner with which the intimates of the house
treated the one and the other. She found these flatt