This method of education assumed a graver character as the child grew
older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry.
He took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had
not a fancy that he did not anticipate and gratify. At thirteen years of
age, she had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram.
Already ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the
unfortunate man overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his
baleful affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious
satiety, as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the
forbidden fruit.

Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory
a fervid worship. She had a private room which she filled with the
portraits of her father and with a thousand personal souvenirs, around
which she kept up flowers.

Madame de Trecoeur, like the greater number of young girls who marry their
cousins, had married very young. She was left a widow at twenty-eight, and
her mother, the Baroness de Pers, who was still living, and who was even
of the liveliest, was not long in suggesting discreetly to her the
propriety of a second marriage. After having exhausted the practical and,
in fact, quite sensible reasons that seemed to urge that course, the
baroness then came down to the sentimental reasons:

"In good faith, my poor child," she said, "you have not had, up too this
time, your just share of happiness in this world. I would not speak ill of
your husband, since he is dead; but, _entre nous_, he was a horrid brute.
Mon Dieu! charming at times, I grant you,--since I have been caught
myself--like all worthless scamps! but in fact, beastly, beastly! Well,
certainly, I shall not undertake to say that marriage is ever a state of