All about her young life glimmer conventional bars: she is a caged bird, vaguely desiring liberty, without a suspicion of what perils liberty might bring. Her pleasures, her ideas, her emotions are still those of a child,--even on the day when her mother, kissing her, first whispers to her some news that makes her flush to her hair. She has been spoken for! A gentleman, whom she scarcely knows even as a visitor, has demanded her hand. Could she love him? She does not know; she is willing to do whatever her mother deems best. They meet thereafter more frequently,--but always as before in the _salon_, in the presence of the family: there is no wooing; there are no private walks and talks; there is, in short, no romance in creole courtship;--everything is arranged and determined by the heads of both families. Her betrothal is circulated as a piece of private news throughout society; but no printed mention of it is ever made. Finally the notary is called, and the marriage contract drawn up, after a strictly business manner; she has rarely anything to do with these preliminaries, but the future husband, if a man of the world, will be careful to read the contract very attentively, and to discuss its provisions, point by point. It is, in fact, a decided weakness to omit these formal considerations of the financial side of marriage. More than one proud or sensitive man has had reason late in life to regret the impulse of trust or affection which caused him to sign his marriage contract without examining it. But the _fiancée_ had nothing to do with this: she is content to leave her parents to make every possible effort to secure her material happiness. Marriage opens to her a larger sphere of life. She can go out freely, visit friends, entertain relatives at her home, and--in these more recent years--even occasionally enter stores. But such comparative freedom has its disadvantages. It involves a round of social duties more or less wearisome,--visits during the heated hours of the day, and the wearing of black close-fitting Parisian dresses in an atmosphere and under a sun more difficult to endure than any summer conditions of the temperate zone. Probably she feels relieved when at a later day the cares of her household and children enable her to excuse herself from taking further part in active social life; and thereafter she rarely leaves home, except to go to church. III