le Julie's maid should have
arranged to purchase a cap on that day. She was going to the milliner's
when Croisilles accosted her, slipped a louis into her hand, and asked her
to take charge of his letter.

The bargain was soon struck; the servant took the money to pay for her cap
and promised to do the errand out of gratitude. Croisilles, full of joy,
went home and sat at his door awaiting an answer.

Before speaking of this answer, a word must be said about Mademoiselle
Godeau. She was not quite free from the vanity of her father, but her good
nature was ever uppermost. She was, in the full meaning of the term, a
spoilt child. She habitually spoke very little, and never was she seen
with a needle in her hand; she spent her days at her toilet, and her
evenings on the sofa, not seeming to hear the conversation going on around
her. As regards her dress, she was prodigiously coquettish, and her own
face was surely what she thought most of on earth. A wrinkle in her
collarette, an ink-spot on her finger, would have distressed her; and,
when her dress pleased her, nothing can describe the last look which she
cast at her mirror before leaving the room. She showed neither taste nor
aversion for the pleasures in which young ladies usually delight. She went
to balls willingly enough, and renounced going to them without a show of
temper, sometimes without motive.

The play wearied her, and she was in the constant habit of falling asleep
there. When her father, who worshipped her, proposed to make her some
present of her own choice, she took an hour to decide, not being able to
think of anything she cared for. When M. Godeau gave a reception or a
dinner, it often happened that Julie would not appear in the drawing-room,
and at such times she passed the evening alone in her own room, in full
dress, walking up and down, her fan in her hand. If a compliment was
addressed to her, she turned away her head, and if any one attempted to
pay court to her, she responded only by a look at once so dazzling and so
serious as to disconcert even the boldest. Never had a sally made her
laugh; never had an air in an opera, a flight of tragedy, moved her;
indeed, never had her heart given a sign of life; and, on seeing her pass
in all the splendor of her nonchalant loveliness one might have taken her
for a beautiful somnambulist, walking through the world as in a trance.

So much indifference and coquetry did not seem easy to understand. Some
sa