into a marble fount, and there took root-two imperceptible roots,
however. The child occupied him not more than a few moments every day.
He thought of him, however, and would return home a little earlier than
usual each day than was his habit, secretly attracted by the smile of
that fresh face. The mother was for him something more. Her sufferings,
her youthful heroism had touched him. She became somebody in his eyes.
He discovered many merits in her. He perceived she was remarkably well-
informed for a woman, and prodigiously so for a French woman. She
understood half a word--knew a great deal--and guessed at the remainder.
She had, in short, that blending of grace and solidity which gives to the
conversation of a woman of cultivated mind an incomparable charm.
Habituated from infancy to her mental superiority as to her pretty face,
she carried the one as unconsciously as the other. She devoted herself
to the care of his household as if she had no idea beyond it. There were
domestic details which she would not confide to servants. She followed
them into her salons, into her boudoirs, a blue feather-brush in hand,
lightly dusting the 'etageres', the 'jardinieres', the 'consoles'. She
arranged one piece of furniture and removed another, put flowers in a
vase-gliding about and singing like a bird in a cage.

Her husband sometimes amused himself in following her with his eye in
these household occupations. She reminded him of the princesses one sees
in the ballet of the opera, reduced by some change of fortune to a
temporary servitude, who dance while putting the house in order.

"How you love order, Marie!" said he to her one day.

"Order" she said, gravely, "is the moral beauty of things."

She emphasized the word things--and, fearing she might be considered