ters-in-law, aunts, cousins and ecclesiastical friends and
connections succeeded each other under its capacious roof. Only Hubert
and his wife were absent. They had taken a villa at Deauville, and in
the morning papers Undine followed the chronicle of Hubert's polo scores
and of the Countess Hubert's racing toilets.

The days crawled on with a benumbing sameness. The old Marquise and the
other ladies of the party sat on the terrace with their needle-work, the
cure or one of the visiting uncles read aloud the Journal des Debats and
prognosticated dark things of the Republic, Paul scoured the park and
despoiled the kitchen-garden with the other children of the family,
the inhabitants of the adjacent chateaux drove over to call, and
occasionally the ponderous pair were harnessed to a landau as lumbering
as the brougham, and the ladies of Saint Desert measured the dusty
kilometres between themselves and their neighbours.

It was the first time that Undine had seriously paused to consider
the conditions of her new life, and as the days passed she began to
understand that so they would continue to succeed each other till the
end. Every one about her took it for granted that as long as she lived
she would spend ten months of every year at Saint Desert and the
remaining two in Paris. Of course, if health required it, she might go
to les eaux with her husband; but the old Marquise was very doubtful as
to the benefit of a course of waters, and her uncle the Duke and her
cousin the Canon shared her view. In the case of young married women,
especially, the unwholesome excitement of the modern watering-place was
more than likely to do away with the possible benefit of the treatment.
As to travel--had not Raymond and his wife been to Egypt and Asia Minor
on their wedding-journey? Such reckless enterprise was unheard of in
the annals of the house! Had they not spent days and days in the saddle,
and slept in tents among the Arabs? (Who could tell, indeed, whether
these imprudences were not the cause of the disappointment which it had
pleased heaven to inflict on the young couple?) No one in the family
had ever taken so long a wedding-journey. One bride had gone to
England (even that was considered extreme), and another--the artistic
daughter--had spent a week in Venice; which certainly showed that they
were not behind the times, and had no old-fashioned prejudices. Since
wedding-journeys were the fashion, they had taken them; but who h