other--oh! I know her ideas! she wants a man well-born, one who has a
position in the world--some one, as she says, who knows something of
life--that is, I suppose, some one no longer young, and who has not much
hair on his head--like Monsieur de Talbrun."

"Is he very ugly--this Monsieur de Talbrun?"

"He's not ugly--and not handsome. But, just think! he is thirty-four!"

Jacqueline blushed, seeing in this speech a reflection on her own taste
in such matters.

"That's twice my age," sighed Giselle.

"Of course that would be dreadful if he were to stay always twice your
age--for instance, if you were now thirty-five, he would be seventy, and
a hundred and twenty when you reached your sixtieth year--but really to
be twice your age now will only make him seventeen years older than
yourself."

In the midst of this chatter, which was beginning to attract the notice
of the nun, they broke off with a laugh, but it was only one of those
laughs 'au bout des levres', uttered by persons who have made up their
minds to be unhappy. Then Giselle went on:

"I know nothing about him, you understand--but he frightens me.
I tremble to think of taking his arm, of talking to him, of being his
wife. Just think even of saying thou to him!"

"But married people don't say thou to each other nowadays," said