"That's nothing. When you think you have before you a man with an iron machine in his shoulder that you could hardly lift, you can't help shivering. Oh, it's fine to be a soldier: in fact, you may call it the noblest profession. To begin with, every one respects them, and their life is full of triumph." "Yes, in time of war, but in time of peace--in time of peace--well, they talk over the way they got their wounds, and the band plays while they are at dinner. It seems the colonel can have the band play whenever he wants to." "Naturally, since it's his band." "Well, all that is very nice, and besides that you make calls on the wife of the prefect, the receiver-general and the bishop." "On the bishop's wife? What are you talking about? Ha! ha!" (She takes off her gloves and begins to bite her nails.) "I did not say the bishop's wife: you are a naughty girl." "Besides, it's only a general's wife who makes calls on the prefect's wife, like that." "I only began with the colonel: one soon gets to be general. Do you suppose that Colonel C----, for instance, won't be a general soon?" "As for me, I would rather marry a general at once." "Yes, but a general does not get married in uniform." "Why not, if you ask him to? That is something fine--a general at the altar. There is nothing more imposing than the military at church. Their gold epaulettes seem to go well with the organ. At the church of the Carmelites there are always one or two officers, but they are little ones, and they do not have the same effect. You did not know I was at the church of the Carmelites on Advent Sunday? Oh, there was a good father there who preached: it was indescribable!--Why don't you wear a braid across the top of your head? My dear child, everybody wears them: won't your mamma let you?" "It is not that, but you can't possibly make a braid to go over the top and then two rolls behind, all out of your own hair." "Well, you can get false hair. Ha! ha! what an innocent lamb you are! You can get false hair, my dear child." "Yes, but papa won't let me: he says I'm too young to begin." "What a pity! As for me, I had no trouble about it. Mamma said, 'It's vexatious, but what can you do, my child? You can't go to a ball in a cap;' and so we went and bought two beautiful blond braids." "Why two?"