vulgarity and the abjectness of the persons about her. M. Gardinois
might deplore in her presence, for hours at a time, the perversity of
tradesmen and servants, or make an estimate of what was being stolen from
him each month, each week, every day, every minute; Madame Fromont might
enumerate her grievances against the mice, the maggots, dust and
dampness, all desperately bent upon destroying her property, and engaged
in a conspiracy against her wardrobes; not a word of their foolish talk
remained in Claire's mind. A run around the lawn, an hour's reading on
the river-bank, restored the tranquillity of that noble and intensely
active mind.

Her grandfather looked upon her as a strange being, altogether out of
place in his family. As a child she annoyed him with her great, honest
eyes, her straightforwardness on all occasions, and also because he did
not find in her a second edition of his own passive and submissive
daughter.

"That child will be a proud chit and an original, like her father," he
would say in his ugly moods.

How much better he liked that little Chebe girl who used to come now and
then and play in the avenues at Savigny! In her, at least, he detected
the strain of the common people like himself, with a sprinkling of
ambition and envy, suggested even in those early days by a certain little
smile at the corner of the mouth. Moreover, the child exhibited an
ingenuous amazement and admiration in presence of his wealth, which
flattered his parvenu pride; and sometimes, when he teased her, she would
break out with the droll phrases of a Paris gamine, slang redolent of the
faubourgs, seasoned by her pretty, piquant face, inclined to pallor,
which not even superficiality could deprive of its distinction. So he