society, and the Baron de Nucingen made it a point of honor to treat
the honest banker well. His disinterested virtue looked well in the
Nucingen salon.

"Every winter dipped into d'Aldrigger's principal, but he did not
venture to remonstrate with his pearl of a Wilhelmine. His was the
most ingenious unintelligent tenderness in the world. A good man, but
a stupid one! 'What will become of them when I am gone?' he said, as
he lay dying; and when he was left alone for a moment with Wirth, his
old man-servant, he struggled for breath to bid him take care of his
mistress and her two daughters, as if the one reasonable being in the
house was this Alsacien Caleb Balderstone.

"Three years afterwards, in 1826, Isaure was twenty years old, and
Malvina still unmarried. Malvina had gone into society, and in course
of time discovered for herself how superficial their friendships were,
how accurately every one was weighed and appraised. Like most girls
that have been 'well brought up,' as we say, Malvina had no idea of
the mechanism of life, of the importance of money, of the difficulty
of obtaining it, of the prices of things. And so, for six years, every
lesson that she had learned had been a painful one for her.

"D'Aldrigger's four hundred thousand francs were carried to the credit
of the Baroness' account with the firm of Nucingen (she was her
husband's creditor for twelve hundred thousand francs under her
marriage settlement), and when in any difficulty the Shepherdess of
the Alps dipped into her capital as though it were inexhaustible.

"When our pigeon first advanced towards his dove, Nucingen, knowing
the Baroness' character, must have spoken plainly to Malvina on the