sublieutenant's cap or in a chimney-pot.

Fallen from these enervating heights of fictitious passions and
hair-dressers' scents into the prosaic but generous and brave arms of
paternal lore, on the breast of true and mighty nature, she had forgotten
for a moment her dreams.

She lavished on her father all the treasures of affection which her heart
contained, and treated him with all manner of solicitude and caresses; and
the old soldier before this youthful future which shone before him, himself
forgot his dreams of the past.




XXVIII.


THE SHADOW.

"Troubled by a vague emotion, I said
to myself, I wanted to be loved, and
I looked around me; I saw no one
who inspired me with love, no one
who appeared to me capable of feeling it."

BENJAMIN CONSTANT (_Adolphe_).

But what is the liberty that a well-behaved girl can enjoy? She had run
like a wild thing in the meadows, letting her hair fly in the wind, and