which cause them to have recourse to the solicitor; but they don't always need pictures, and most people never need them. They are pure luxuries. Julien will not make a small fortune, as his father did. His character and talent are even more highly esteemed perhaps; but he has not the attractive frivolity, the taste for society and the brilliant external qualities which cause a certain sort of people to become infatuated with an artist, bring him out, sing his praises, and make him shine resplendent. Let me tell you that my Uncle André's talent, genuine as it was, would never have extricated him from poverty, if he had not been a fine table-singer, a great man for clever remarks and piquant anecdotes, and if certain influential but volatile ladies had not from time to time made him unfaithful to his wife, whom he adored none the less, but of whom he said under his breath, innocently enough, that he must needs deceive her a little, in her own interest.--You lose color!--Julien will not follow that example of a time which has gone by; but it will be of no use for Julien to produce masterpieces, he will remain poor. Society does not become infatuated with modest merit, and does not travel about in quest of unknown virtue. His marriage with you will make a certain noise, a little scandal which will bring him into notice. His father's marriage had that result at the time; but, once more I say, times have changed: the world is more austere or more hypocritical to-day than in La Pompadour's day. Then, too, the same sort of adventure doesn't succeed twice. People will say that youngster is very presumptuous to try to mimic his father; and you will raise up more enemies than patrons for him. There will be a great outcry against you. I don't suppose that the marchioness will try to have you put in a convent and him in the Bastille, for the crime of misalliance: she has no rights over you; but she will injure you much more by crying you down, and you will not have the rigors of persecution to make you interesting. People know you, they know that you are rigidly virtuous; the reaction will be all the more violent and implacable, the old prudes will go about everywhere saying that as such marriages threaten to become common in society, they cannot be endured and must be severely condemned. Even the liberally-minded--some of whom are Julien's patrons now--will not dare to defend you. They too belong to society to-day. They are no longer persecuted but are caressed and flattered, and Paris is still quivering over the triumph awarded Monsieur de Voltaire after his long exile. People laugh at Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed that he was still a victim of the machinations of bigots, and who might have lived in peace and honor, so they say, if his heart had not been soured and his mind diseased. The philosophers have the upper hand to-day; they are no longer over-solicitous to fight against prejudice, and the