regarded as nothing else than a burden in the economical
household.

"You ask me what I shall do with Thérèse?" said Madame Linders
one day to a confidential friend. "Oh! she will go into a
convent, of course. I know of an excellent one near Liége, of
which her aunt is the superior, and where she will be
perfectly happy. She has a turn that way. What else can I do
with her, my dear? To speak frankly, she is _laide à faire
peur_, and she can have no _dot_ worth mentioning; for I have not
a sou to spare; so there is no chance of her marrying."

Thérèse knew her fate, and was resigned to it. As her mother
said, she had a turn that way; and to the Liége convent she
according went, but not before Madame Linders' death, which
took place when her daughter was about seven-and-twenty, and
which was, as Thérèse vehemently averred, occasioned by grief
at her son's conduct.

Adolphe had also known the fate reserved for him, and was by
no means resigned to it; for he had never had the least
intention of becoming a soldier, and having escaped
conscription, absolutely refused to enter the army. He was a
clever, unprincipled lad, who had done well at his studies,
but lost no time in getting into the most dissipated society
he could find from the moment he left college. He inherited
his father's good looks, but his mother's predilections
apparently; for he set out in life with the determination to
be Parisian amongst Parisians--of a certain class, be it
understood; and having some talent for drawing, as indeed he