"Let him have his say," he would cry; "Edmee, you must not interfere; I
want to beat him on all points. If you continually interrupt us, I shall
never be able to make him see his absurdity."

And then the squall would blow stronger from both sides, until at last
the chevalier, seriously offended, would walk out of the room, and go
and vent his ill-humour on his huntsman or his hounds.

What most contributed to the recurrence of these unseemly wrangles and
to the growth of my ridiculous obstinacy was my uncle's extreme goodness
and the rapidity of his recovery. At the end of an hour he had entirely
forgotten my rudeness and his own irritation. He would speak to me as
usual and inquire into all my wishes and all my wants with that fatherly
solicitude which always kept him in a benevolent mood. This incomparable
man could never had slept had he not, before going to bed, embraced all
his family, and atoned, either by a word or a kindly glance, for any
ebullitions of temper which the meanest of his servants might have had
to bear during the day. Such goodness ought to have disarmed me and
closed my mouth forever. Each evening I vowed that it should; but each
morning I returned, as the Scriptures say, to my vomit again.

Edmee suffered more and more every day from this development of my
character. She cast about for means to cure it. If there was never
_fiancee_ stronger-minded and more reserved than she, never was there
mother more tender. After many discussions with the abbe she resolved to
persuade her father to change the routine of our life somewhat, and to
remove our establishment to Paris for the last weeks of the carnival.
Our long stay in the country; the isolation which the position of
Sainte-Severe and the bad state of the roads had left us since the
beginning of winter; the monotony of our daily life--all tended to