political faith, impart to both a harsh and hateful appearance, the effect
of which is not exactly to attract proselytes. The outer forms, in all
things, are sufficient for her conscience; otherwise, no trace of charity
or kindness; above all, no trace of humility. Her genealogy, her assiduity
to church, and her annual pilgrimages to the shrine of an illustrious
exile (who would probably be glad to dispense with the sight of her
countenance), inspire in this fairy such a lofty idea of herself and such
a profound contempt for her neighbor, that they make her positively
unsociable. She remains forever absorbed in the latrian worship which she
believes due to herself. She deigns to speak but to God, and He must
indeed be a kind and merciful God if He listens to her.

Under the nominal patronage of this mystic duenna, the Little Countess
enjoys an absolute independence, which she uses to excess. After spending
the winter in Paris, where she kills off regularly two horses and a
coachman every month for the sole gratification of waltzing ten minutes
every night in half a dozen different balls, Madame de Palme feels the
necessity of seeking rest in the peace of rural life. She arrives at her
aunt's, she jumps upon a horse, and she starts at full gallop. It matters
not which way she goes, provided she keeps going. Most generally she comes
to the Chateau de Malouet, where the kind-hearted mistress of the house
manifests for her an amount of predilection which I can hardly understand.
Familiar with men, impertinent with women, the Little Countess offers a
broad mark to the most indiscreet homage of the former, and to the jealous
hostility of the latter. Indifferent to the outrages of public opinion,
she seems ready to aspire to the coarsest incense of gallantry; but what
she requires above all things is noise, movement, a whirl, worldly
pleasure carried to its most extreme and most extravagant fury; what she
requires every morning, every evening, and every night, is a break-neck
chase, which she conducts with frenzy; a reckless game, in which she may