er a passionate predilection, singularly
mitigated by the sentiments of tender pity which her mother's unhappiness
inspired in her youthful heart. She saw her weep often; she would then
throw herself upon the floor, curled up at her feet, and there remain for
hours, motionless and dumb, looking at her with moist eyes, and drinking
from time to time a tear from her cheek.

She had apparently caught, as many children do, some echoes of the
domestic woes. Doubtless her quick intellect appreciated her father's
wrong-doings; but her father--that handsome gentleman, so witty, generous,
and wild--she worshiped him; she was proud to be his daughter; she
palpitated with joy when he clasped her to his heart. She could neither
judge him nor blame him; he was a superior being. She contented herself
with pitying and consoling, as best she could, that gentle and charming
creature who was her mother, and who suffered.

Within the circle of Madame de Trecoeur's acquaintances, Julia simply
passed for a little plague. The dear madames, as she called them, who
formed the ornament of her mother's Thursdays, related with bitterness to
each other the scenes of comical imitation with which the child followed
their entrance and their departure. The men considered themselves
fortunate when they did not carry off a bit of paper or silk on the back
of their coats. All this amused Monsieur de Trecoeur extremely. When his
daughter performed with half a dozen chairs some of those Olympian races
that knocked every piano in the neighborhood out of tune--

"Julia!" he would exclaim, "you don't make noise enough. Smash a vase."

And a vase she did smash; whereupon her father kissed her with enthusiasm.

This method of education assumed a graver character as the child grew
older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry.
He took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had
not a fancy that he did not anticipate and gratify. At thirteen years of
age, she had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram.
Already ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the
unfortunate man overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his
baleful affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious
satiety, as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the
forbidden fruit.

Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory
a fervid worship. She had a pr