Mademoiselle Evangelista bewitching and said to a marriageable man
that he couldn't do it better, "Who would be bold enough," some woman
would reply, "to marry a girl whose mother gives her a thousand francs
a month for her toilet,--a girl who has horses and a maid of her own,
and wears laces? Yes, her 'peignoirs' are trimmed with mechlin. The
price of her washing would support the household of a clerk. She wears
pelerines in the morning which actually cost six francs to get up."

These, and other speeches said occasionally in the form of praise
extinguished the desires that some men might have had to marry the
beautiful Spanish girl. Queen of every ball, accustomed to flattery,
"blasee" with the smiles and the admiration which followed her every
step, Natalie, nevertheless, knew nothing of life. She lived as the
bird which flies, as the flower that blooms, finding every one about
her eager to do her will. She was ignorant of the price of things; she
knew neither the value of money, nor whence it came, how it should be
managed, and how spent. Possibly she thought that every household had
cooks and coachmen, lady's-maids and footmen, as the fields have hay
and the trees their fruits. To her, beggars and paupers, fallen trees
and waste lands seemed in the same category. Pampered and petted as
her mother's hope, no fatigue was allowed to spoil her pleasure. Thus
she bounded through life as a courser on his steppe, unbridled and
unshod.

Six month's after Paul's arrival the Pink of Fashion and the Queen of
Balls met in presence of the highest society of the town of Bordeaux.
The two flowers looked at each other with apparent coldness, and
mutually thought each other charming. Interested in watching the
effects of the meeting, Madame Evangelista divined in the expression
of Paul's eyes the feelings within him, and she muttered to herself,