hiding her face in her handkerchief and saying, "How cruel you are to make me laugh! It does me so much harm." Through all her despair, Léonie was contriving to win the intimate confidence of the Marchioness so as insensibly to supplant Caroline, who did not perceive this, and was a thousand leagues from suspecting her designs. Now Léonie's main project was this:-- As she saw the health of her disagreeable husband becoming impaired and her own private purse filling out round, Madame d'Arglade asked herself what kind of a successor she should give him, and, as she had not yet been confidentially informed of the marriage already arranged with Mlle de Xaintrailles, she had resolved to confer the right to the vacant living upon the Duke d'Aléria. She thought him "ineligible," on the conditions of fortune united to youth and rank, and said to herself, not without logic and plausibility, that the widow of a respectable and wealthy gentleman, without children, was the best match to which a penniless prodigal, reduced to going on foot and reckoning up accounts with his body-servant, could possibly aspire. Léonie then had no doubt of her success, and while busying herself with much skill in the investment of her capital she said to herself in supreme calm, "Now all is finished, I have plenty of money, I will speculate no more, I will intrigue no more. My ambition, satiated in this direction, must change its object. I must efface the birth-mark of plebeianism, which still incommodes me in society. I must have a title. That of Duchess is well worth the trouble of some thought!" She had indeed thought of it in time, but M. d'Arglade died too late. She had scarcely laid aside her first mourning crapes, when, on her earliest visit to the Marchioness, she learned that she must think of it no longer. Léonie then turned her batteries on the Marquis de Villemer. This was less brilliant and more difficult, but still it was satisfactory as a title, and, from her point of view, not impossible. The Marchioness was extremely anxious about her son's bachelor state, the prospect of which as a permanency seemed to have new charms for him in his negligence. She opened her heart to Madame d'Arglade. "He really frightens me," said she, "with his tranquil air. I fear he may have some prejudice--I know not what--against marriage, perhaps against women in general. He is more than timid, he is unsociable, and yet he is charming when you succeed in winning him into familiarity. He needs to meet some woman who will fall in love with him herself first, and then have courage enough to make him love her in return." Léonie profited by these revelations. "Ah! yes," replied she, giddily, "he needs a wife of higher position than mine, one who is not the widow of the best of men; but somebody who would still have my age, my wealth, and my disposition." "Your disposition is too impulsive for a man so reserved, my darling."