alm of the provinces
and the habits of a virtuous life, keep their youth until they are
past forty. She was like the last rose of autumn,--pleasant to the
eye, though the petals have a certain frostiness, and their perfume is
slight. She dressed well, got her fashions from Paris, set the tone to
Saumur, and gave parties. Her husband, formerly a quartermaster in the
Imperial guard, who had been desperately wounded at Austerlitz, and had
since retired, still retained, in spite of his respect for Grandet, the
seeming frankness of an old soldier.

"Good evening, Grandet," he said, holding out his hand and affecting
a sort of superiority, with which he always crushed the Cruchots.
"Mademoiselle," he added, turning to Eugenie, after bowing to Madame
Grandet, "you are always beautiful and good, and truly I do not know
what to wish you." So saying, he offered her a little box which his
servant had brought and which contained a Cape heather,--a flower lately
imported into Europe and very rare.

Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affectionately, pressed her
hand, and said: "Adolphe wishes to make you my little offering."

A tall, blond young man, pale and slight, with tolerable manners and
seemingly rather shy, although he had just spent eight or ten thousand
francs over his allowance in Paris, where he had been sent to study
law, now came forward and kissed Eugenie on both cheeks, offering her a
workbox with utensils in silver-gilt,--mere show-case trumpery, in
spite of the monogram E.G. in gothic letters rather well engraved,
which belonged properly to something in better taste. As she opened it,
Eugenie experienced one of those unexpected and perfect delights which
make a young girl blush and quiver and tremble with pleasure. She
turned her eyes to her father as if to ask permission to accept it, and
Monsieur Grandet replied: "Take it, my daughter," in a tone which would
have made an actor illustrious.

The three Cruchots felt crushed as they saw the joyous, animated look
cast upon Adolphe des Grassins by the heiress, to whom such riches were
unheard-of. Monsieur des Grassins offered Grandet a pinch of snuff,
took one himself, shook off the grains as they fell on the ribbon of
the Legion of honor which was attached to the button-hole of his blue
surtout; then he looked at the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say,
"Parry that thrust if you can!" Madame des Grassins cast her eyes on the
blue vases which held the Cruc