n, and, clever as she was, take her place in the best society of
the place.

The arrival of Madame and Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf in the lawyer's
household was a great reinforcement for the liberal party; and it
created consternation among the aristocrats of Provins and also in the
Tiphaine clique. Madame de Breautey, horrified to see two women of
rank so misled, begged them to come to her. She was shocked that the
royalists of Troyes had so neglected the mother and daughter, whose
situation she now learned for the first time.

"How is it that no old country gentleman has married that dear girl,
who is cut out for a lady of the manor?" she said. "They have let her
run to seed, and now she is to be flung at the head of a Rogron!"

She ransacked the whole department but did not succeed in finding any
gentleman willing to marry a girl whose mother had only two thousand
francs a year. The "clique" and the subprefect also looked about them
with the same object, but they were all too late. Madame de Breautey
made terrible charges against the selfishness which degraded France,
--the consequence, she said, of materialism, and of the importance
now given by the laws to money: nobility was no longer of value! nor
beauty either! Such creatures as the Rogrons, the Vinets, could stand
up and fight with the King of France!

Bathilde de Chargeboeuf had not only the incontestable superiority of
beauty over her rival, but that of dress as well. She was dazzlingly
fair. At twenty-five her shoulders were fully developed, and the
curves of her beautiful figure were exquisite. The roundness of her
throat, the purity of its lines, the wealth of her golden hair, the
charming grace of her smile, the distinguished carriage of her head,
the character of her features, the fine eyes finely placed beneath a
well-formed brow, her every motion, noble and high-bred, and her light
and graceful figure,--all were in harmony. Her hands were beautiful,
and her feet slender. Health gave her, perhaps, too much the look of a
handsome barmaid. "But that can't be a defect in the eyes of a
Rogron," sighed Madame Tiphaine. Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf's dress
when she made her first appearance in Provins at the Rogrons' house
was very simple. Her brown merino gown edged with green embroidery was
worn low-necked; but a tulle fichu, carefully drawn down by hidden
strings, covered her neck and shoulders, though it opened a little in
front, where its folds were c