professors attached to the Champs-Elysées _pension_; one with an Italian count, who bribed the ladies'-maid to convey notes, and who was subsequently thrashed and instructed in the _savate_ by the Auvergnat porter of the establishment; and one with an English gentleman coming over from Boulogne; and her aunt used to encourage her to tell of these, and would laugh at them until the tears came into her eyes. At nineteen she was presented, made her _coup_, and now for two seasons had been a reigning belle. Offers she had had in plenty,--youthful peers with slender incomes; middle-aged commoners, solemn, wealthy, and dull; smug widowers, hoping to renew the sweets of matrimony, and trusting to bygone experience to keep clear of its bitters. But Barbara refused them all; played with them, landed them,--giving them all the time the most pleasurable sensations of encouragement, as old Izaak used to tickle trout,--and then flung them back, bruised and gasping, into that muddy stream the world. She told her aunt she was playing for a high stake; that she did not care for any of these men; that she did not think she ever should care for any one; under which circumstances she had better make the best bargain of herself, and go at a high price. There are plenty of women like this. We rave against cruel parents and sordid Mammon-matches; but very often the parents are merely passive in the matter. There are plenty of girls who have walnuts, or peach stones, or something equally impressible, where their hearts should be, who have never experienced the smallest glimmer of love, and who look upon the possession of a carriage and an Opera-box, and admission into high society, as the acme of human enjoyment.