“Well! madame, who is always so pretty--I don’t know how it is, but with that cap madame has a stern, serious look.” “Say at once that it makes me older, for that is what you don’t dare to say.” “Oh! it isn’t that; madame can’t look old; that is impossible; but madame has a less animated, less coquettish air--that’s it, less coquettish.” Madame de Grangeville snatched off her cap and threw it on a chair, crying: “You are quite right, Lizida; this cap certainly does make me a frightful object.” “Oh! frightful! As if madame could be frightful when--when she is so pretty!” “Hush, child; take the cap; I give it to you, it’s yours, do what you choose with it.” “Madame is too good; but I wouldn’t want madame to think----” “I tell you to take that cap, I never want to hear of it again. Go and get me the little blue one that I wore before I bought that one.” Mademoiselle Lizida ran from the room to fetch the cap which her mistress asked for, and handed it to her; then she made haste to take to her own room the cap for which the baroness had paid thirty-five francs and which she had worn but three times, saying to herself: “I knew very well that I should get it! Oh! it is a perfect beauty! It makes me look like an angel, and I will wear it on Sunday to go to the Château des Fleurs to dance.--How lovely it is!” Then she returned to her mistress, who had put on the blue cap, and cried: “Oh! how lovely madame is in that! madame is only twenty-five years old,--not a day more. Ah! if I was a man, how madly in love I should be with madame!” “Hush, you mad girl! It’s a fact that this cap is very becoming to me.” “Madame, you must have another one just like it made at once.” “Yes, that is what I intend to do, when I am in funds.--Let me look at the newspaper, the quotations; I don’t understand them very well.” “Madame, I was told that the Mouzaias had gone up.” “Really? Oh! if only that were true! for I bought twenty shares at par, and they have fallen to forty-eight francs. Let me see,--a rise of fifty centimes! That is magnificent!” “Then madame has not made anything?” “If I should sell now, I shouldn’t get back a thousand francs of the two thousand that I invested; I should lose more than half!” “Then you mustn’t sell, madame!” “I mustn’t sell, but I must have money. I have promised to go to Nogent, to visit those Glumeaus, who are to have a family party, with theatricals.” “The Glumeaus! Who on earth are they? Retired grocers?” “No, they are--Faith, I don’t know what they used to do, nor do I care. If I had to inquire about such things as that, should I ever go into society? But they are excellent people; one enjoys oneself at their house; it is just like being at home. The company is a little mixed there perhaps, but isn’t it so everywhere? I met at Monsieur Glumeau’s a person whom I used to know, before I was married.” “Ah! it must have been a long while ago then!”