same kind of education that has succeeded so well with Giselle; bolts on the garden-gates, wholesome seclusion, the company of girls of their own age, a great regularity of life, nothing which stimulates either vanity or imagination. That is the proper way to bring up girls without notions, girls who will let themselves be married without opposition, and are satisfied with the state of life to which Providence may be pleased to call them. For my part, I am enchanted with the ladies in the Rue de Monsieur, and, what is more, Giselle is very happy among them; to hear her talk you would suppose she was quite ready to take the veil. Of course, that is a mere passing fancy. But fancies of that sort are never dangerous, they have nothing in common with those that are passing nowadays through most girls’ brains. Having ‘a day!’--what a foolish notion: And then to let little girls take part in it, even in a corner of the room. I’ll wager that, though her skirts are half way up her legs, and her hair is dressed like a baby’s, that that little de Nailles is less of a child than my granddaughter, who has been brought up by the Benedictines. You say that she probably does not understand all that goes on around her. Perhaps not, but she breathes it in. It’s poison-that’s what it is!” There was a good deal of truth in this harsh picture, although it contained considerable exaggeration. At this moment, when Madame de Monredon was sitting in judgment on the education given to the little girls brought up in the world, and on the ruinous extravagance of their young stepmothers, Madame de Nailles and Jacqueline--their last visitors having departed--were resting themselves, leaning tenderly against each other, on a sofa. Jacqueline’s head lay on her mother’s lap. Her mother, without speaking, was stroking the girl’s dark hair. Jacqueline, too, was silent, but from time to time she kissed the slender fingers sparkling with rings, as they came within reach of her lips. When M. de Nailles, about dinner-time, surprised them thus, he said, with satisfaction, as he had often said before, that it would be hard to find a home scene more charming, as they sat under the light of a lamp with a pink shade. That the stepmother and stepdaughter adored each other was beyond a doubt. And yet, had any one been able to look into their hearts at that moment, he would have discovered with surprise that each was thinking of something that she could not confide to the other. Both were thinking of the same person. Madame de Nailles was occupied with recollections, Jacqueline with hope. She was absorbed in Machiavellian strategy, how to realize a hope that had been formed that very afternoon. “What are you both thinking of, sitting there so quietly?” said the Baron, stooping over them and kissing first his wife and then his child. “About nothing,” said the wife, with the most innocent of smiles.