amid flowers is one of the
finest myths that antiquity has bequeathed for the guidance of our
lives. How often we hear fools, trying to excuse themselves in their
own eyes or in the eyes of others, exclaiming, "It was all so natural
that any one would have been taken in."

In 1809, Madame Descoings, who never told her age, was sixty-five. In
her heyday she had been popularly called a beauty, and was now one of
those rare women whom time respects. She owed to her excellent
constitution the privilege of preserving her good looks, which,
however, would not bear close examination. She was of medium height,
plump, and fresh, with fine shoulders and a rather rosy complexion.
Her blond hair, bordering on chestnut, showed, in spite of her
husband's catastrophe, not a tinge of gray. She loved good cheer, and
liked to concoct nice little made dishes; yet, fond as she was of
eating, she also adored the theatre and cherished a vice which she
wrapped in impenetrable mystery--she bought into lotteries. Can that
be the abyss of which mythology warns us under the fable of the
Danaides and their cask? Madame Descoings, like other women who are
lucky enough to keep young for many years, spend rather too much upon
her dress; but aside from these trifling defects she was the
pleasantest of women to live with. Of every one's opinion, never
opposing anybody, her kindly and communicative gayety gave pleasure to
all. She had, moreover, a Parisian quality which charmed the retired
clerks and elderly merchants of her circle,--she could take and give a
jest. If she did not marry a third time it was no doubt the fault of
the times. During the wars of the Empire, marrying men found rich and
handsome girls too easily to trouble themselves about women of sixty.

Madame Descoings, always anxious to cheer Madame Bridau, often took
the latter to the theatre, or to drive; prepared excellent little
dinners for her delectation, and even tried to marry her to her own
son by her first husband, Bixiou. Alas! to do this, she was forced to
reveal a terrible secret, carefully kept by her, by her late husband,
and by her notary. The young and beautiful Madame Descoings, who
passed for thirty-six years old, had a son who was thirty-five, named
Bixiou, already a widower, a major in the Twenty-Fourth Infantry, who
subsequently perished at Lutzen, leaving behind him an only son.
Madame Descoings, who only saw her grandson secretly, gave out that he
was the son of t