Madame de Balzac took three large pinches of snuff. "That is very well
said," said she, gravely: "very well indeed! not at all like your
father, though, who never paid a compliment in his life. Your clothes,
by the by, are in exquisite taste: I had no idea that English people had
arrived at such perfection in the fine arts. Your face is a little too
long! You admire Racine, of course? How do you like Paris?"

All this was not said gayly or quickly: Madame de Balzac was by no means
a gay or a quick person. She belonged to a peculiar school of
Frenchwomen, who affected a little languor, a great deal of stiffness,
an indifference to forms when forms were to be used by themselves, and
an unrelaxing demand of forms when forms were to be observed to them by
others. Added to this, they talked plainly upon all matters, without
ever entering upon sentiment. This was the school she belonged to; but
she possessed the traits of the individual as well as of the species.
She was keen, ambitious, worldly, not unaffectionate nor unkind; very
proud, a little of the devotee,--because it was the fashion to be
so,--an enthusiastic admirer of military glory, and a most prying,
searching, intriguing schemer of politics without the slightest talent
for the science.

"Like Paris!" said I, answering only the last question, and that not
with the most scrupulous regard to truth. "Can Madame de Balzac think
of Paris, and not conceive the transport which must inspire a person
entering it for the first time? But I had something more endearing than
a stranger's interest to attach me to it: I longed to express to my
father's friend my gratitude for the interest which I venture to believe
she on one occasion manifested towards me."

"Ah! you mean my caution to you against that terrible De Montreuil.