Well, in that we agree. You respect those professions, I imagine, as a
young man respects a dowager."

Monsieur Longueville made his visit neither too long nor too short. He
left at the moment when he saw that he had pleased everybody, and that
each one's curiosity about him had been roused.

"He is a cunning rascal!" said the Count, coming into the drawing-room
after seeing him to the door.

Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who had been in the secret of this call, had
dressed with some care to attract the young man's eye; but she had the
little disappointment of finding that he did not bestow on her so much
attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal
surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally
displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty prattle,
and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes. Whether
it was that the young man's pleasing voice and attractive manners had
charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this feeling had
worked a change in her, her demeanor had lost all its affectations.
Being simple and natural, she must, no doubt, have seemed more
beautiful. Some of her sisters, and an old lady, a friend of the family,
saw in this behavior a refinement of art. They supposed that Emilie,
judging the man worthy of her, intended to delay revealing her merits,
so as to dazzle him suddenly when she found that she pleased him. Every
member of the family was curious to know what this capricious creature
thought of the stranger; but when, during dinner, every one chose to
endow Monsieur Longueville with some fresh quality which no one else
had discovered, Mademoiselle de Fontaine sat for some time in silence. A
sarcastic remark of her uncle's suddenly roused her from her apathy;
she said, somewhat epigrammatically, that such heavenly perfection
must cover some great defect, and that she would take good care how she
judged so gifted a man at first sight.

"Those who please everybody, please nobody," she added; "and the worst
of all faults is to have none."

Like all girls who are in love, Emilie cherished the hope of being
able to hide her feelings at the bottom of her heart by putting the
Argus-eyes that watched on the wrong tack; but by the end of a fortnight
there was not a member of the large family party who was not in this
little domestic secret. When Monsieur Longueville called for the third
time, Emilie believed it was chief