little angel, let me kiss you!"

She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and
continued smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp.

"We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have
compromised your husband and your position. Still, we will

arrange to make everything right."
"But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is

my wish that all Paris should say that I was with M. de
Montriveau this morning. If you destroy that belief, however ill

grounded it may be, you will do me a singular disservice."
"Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your

family?"
"My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable

misfortune when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You
may, perhaps, blame me for seeking alleviations, but you will

certainly feel for me."
"After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters

suitably!" muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame.
The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. "My

dear little girl," she said, "be happy, if you can. We are not
talking of troubling your felicity, but of reconciling it with

social usages. We all of us here assembled know that marriage is
a defectiveinstitution tempered by love. But when you take a

lover, is there any need to make your bed in the Place du
Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, and hear what we

have to say."
"I am listening."

"Mme la Duchesse," began the Duc de Grandlieu, "if it were any
part of an uncle's duty to look after his nieces, he ought to

have a position; society would owe him honours and rewards and a
salary, exactly as if he were in the King's service. So I am not

here to talk about my nephew, but of your own interests. Let us
look ahead a little. If you persist in making a scandal--I have

seen the animal before, and I own that I have no great liking for
him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care a rap for

anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick to
your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a

nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have
just inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for

his mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the
law; you will have to say Amen to all these arrangements.

Suppose M. de Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put
ourselves in a passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a

woman while she is young and pretty; still, we have seen so many
pretty women left disconsolate, even among princesses, that you

will permit the supposition, an all but impossible supposition I
quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that he goes, what will

become of you without a husband? Keep well with your husband as
you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a woman's

parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I am
supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am

leaving unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the
reckoning. This being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may

have children. What are they to be? Montriveaus? Very well;
they certainly will not succeed to their father's whole fortune.

You will want to give them all that you have; he will wish to do
the same. Nothing more natural, dear me! And you will find the

law against you. How many times have we seen heirs-at-law
bringing a law-suit to recover the property from illegitimate

children? Every court of law rings with such actions all over
the world. You will create a fidei commissum perhaps; and if the

trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy
against him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see

the perplexities of the position. In every possible way your
children will be sacrificed of necessity to the fancies of your

heart; they will have no recognised status. While they are
little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day they will

reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We old
gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and

men are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear
young de Horn say, after supper, `If my mother had been an honest

woman, I should be prince-regnant!' `IF?' We have spent our
lives in hearing plebeians say IF. IF brought about the

Revolution. When a man cannot lay the blame on his father or
mother, he holds God responsible for his hard lot. In short,

dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all I have
to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman

ought never to put her husband in the right."
"Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I

looked at interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel."
"But, my dear little girl," remonstrated the Vidame, "life is

simply a complication of interests and feelings; to be happy,
more particularly in your position, one must try to reconcile

one's feelings with one's interests. A grisette may love
according to her fancy, that is intelligible enough, but you have

a pretty fortune, a family, a name and a place at Court, and you
ought not to fling them out of the window. And what have we been

asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre carefully
instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall

very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any
regime, a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for

the love of this lucky young man."
The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could

have seen that glance, he would have forgiven all.
"It would be very effective on the stage," remarked the Duc de

Grandlieu, "but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and
position and independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my

dear niece. You will not find many families where the relatives
have courage enough to teach the wisdom gained by experience, and

to make rash young heads listen to reason. Renounce your
salvation in two minutes, if it pleases you to damn yourself;

well and good; but reflect well beforehand when it comes to
renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who remits the

pains of poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this way
to you; for if you are ruined, I am the one person who can offer

you a refuge. I am almost an uncle to Langeais, and I alone have
a right to put him in the wrong."

The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painfulreflections.
"Since you speak of feeling, my child," he said, "let me

remind you that a woman who bears your name ought to be moved by
sentiments which do not touch ordinary people. Can you wish to

give an advantage to the Liberals, to those Jesuits of
Robespierre's that are doing all they can to vilify the noblesse?

Some things a Navarreins cannot do without failing in duty to his
house. You would not be alone in your dishonour----"

"Come, come!" said the Princess. "Dishonour? Do not make
such a fuss about the journey of an empty carriage, children, and

leave me alone with Antoinette. Ail three of you come and dine
with me. I will undertake to arrange matters suitably. You men

understand nothing; you are beginning to talk sourly already, and
I have no wish to see a quarrel between you and my dear child.

Do me the pleasure to go."
The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess's intentions;

they took their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on
the forehead with, "Come, be good, dear child. It is not too

late yet if you choose."