inform him that she receives none but old acquaintances, in the present
grief of the family, and of the KINGDOM.


Young Riviere was cruelly mortified by this rebuff. He went off
hurriedly, grinding his teeth with rage.

"Cursed aristocrats! We have done well to pull you down, and we will
have you lower still. How I despise myself for giving any one the chance
to affront me thus. The haughty old fool; if she had known her interest,
she would have been too glad to make a powerful friend. These royalists
are in a ticklish position; I can tell her that. She calls me De
Riviere; that implies nobody without a 'De' to their name would have the
presumption to visit her old tumble-down house. Well, it is a lesson; I
am a republican, and the Commonwealth trusts and honors me; yet I am
so ungrateful as to go out of the way to be civil to her enemies, to
royalists; as if those worn-out creatures had hearts, as if they could
comprehend the struggle that took place in my mind between duty, and
generosity to the fallen, before I could make the first overture to
their acquaintance; as if they could understand the politeness of
the heart, or anything nobler than curving and ducking and heartless
etiquette. This is the last notice I will ever take of that old woman,
unless it is to denounce her."

He walked home to the town very fast, his heart boiling, and his lips
compressed, and his brow knitted.

To this mood succeeded a sullen and bitter one. He was generous, but
vain, and his love had humiliated him so bitterly, he resolved to tear
it out of his heart. He absented himself from church; he met the young