"Is it to tell me of your family jars that you honor me with this visit?"
said Eugenie.

"No, indeed! It was rather to escape from them, dear Mademoiselle! But
alas! my visit has also another object: to release you from the promise
you were so kind as to make me regarding the matter of our kermess; a
project now unfortunately rendered futile by that Zibeline!"

"Otherwise called 'Mademoiselle de Vermont.'"

"I prefer to call her Zibeline--that name is better suited to a
courtesan."

"You are very severe toward her!"

"I can not endure hypocrites!" naively replied the worthy man.

"She appeared to me to be very beautiful, however," continued Eugenie
Gontier, in order to keep up the conversation on the woman who she felt
instinctively was her rival.

"Beautiful! Not so beautiful as you," rejoined M. Desvanneaux,
gallantly. "She is a very ambitious person, who throws her money at our
heads, the better to humiliate us."

"But, since it is all in the interest of the Orphan Asylum--"

"Say, rather, in her own interest, to put herself on a pedestal because
of her generosity! Oh, she has succeeded at the first stroke! Already,