ters are often puzzled to know what to do
with boxes at the theatre; ministerialist deputies and their
constituents are busy in their vineyards or harvest fields, and their
more exacting acquaintances are in the country or traveling about; so
it comes to pass that the best seats are filled at this season with
heterogeneous theatre-goers, never seen at any other time of year, and
the house is apt to look as if it were tapestried with very shabby
material. Chatelet had thought already that this was his opportunity
of giving Nais the amusements which provincials crave most eagerly,
and that with very little expense.

The next morning, the very first morning in Paris, Lucien went to the
Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg and found that Louise had gone out. She had
gone to make some indispensable purchases, to take counsel of the
mighty and illustrious authorities in the matter of the feminine
toilette, pointed out to her by Chatelet, for she had written to tell
the Marquise d'Espard of her arrival. Mme. de Bargeton possessed the
self-confidence born of a long habit of rule, but she was exceedingly
afraid of appearing to be provincial. She had tact enough to know how
greatly the relations of women among themselves depend upon first
impressions; and though she felt that she was equal to taking her
place at once in such a distinguished set as Mme. de d'Espard's, she
felt also that she stood in need of goodwill at her first entrance
into society, and was resolved, in the first place, that she would
leave nothing undone to secure success. So she felt boundlessly
thankful to Chatelet for pointing out these ways of putting herself in
harmony with the fashionable world.

A singular chance so ordered it that the Marquise was delighted to
find an opportunity of being useful to a connection of her husband's
family. The Marquis d'Espard had withdrawn himself without apparent
reason from society, and ceased to take any active interest in
affairs, political or domestic. His wife, thus left mistress of her
actions, felt the need of the support of public opinion, and was glad
to take the Marquis' place and give her countenance to one of her
husband's relations. She meant to be ostentatiously gracious, so as to
put her husband more evidently in the wrong; and that very day she
wrote, "Mme. de Bargeton _nee_ Negrepelisse" a charming billet, one of
the prettily worded compositions of which time alone can discover the
emptiness.

"She was delighted