dresses--I never really lived till the day when
we became sisters."

"Wait a moment, my tiger-cat!" cried Valerie, laughing; "your shawl is
crooked. You cannot put a shawl on yet in spite of my lessons for three
years--and you want to be Madame la Marechale Hulot!"

Shod in prunella boots, over gray silk stockings, in a gown of handsome
corded silk, her hair in smooth bands under a very pretty black velvet
bonnet, lined with yellow satin, Lisbeth made her way to the Rue
Saint-Dominique by the Boulevard des Invalides, wondering whether sheer
dejection would at last break down Hortense's brave spirit, and whether
Sarmatian instability, taken at a moment when, with such a character,
everything is possible, would be too much for Steinbock's constancy.

Hortense and Wenceslas had the ground floor of a house situated at the
corner of the Rue Saint-Dominique and the Esplanade des Invalides.
These rooms, once in harmony with the honeymoon, now had that half-new,
half-faded look that may be called the autumnal aspect of furniture.
Newly married folks are as lavish and wasteful, without knowing it or
intending it, of everything about them as they are of their affection.
Thinking only of themselves, they reck little of the future, which, at a
later time, weighs on the mother of a family.

Lisbeth found Hortense just as she had finished dressing a baby
Wenceslas, who had been carried into the garden.

"Good-morning, Betty," said Hortense, opening the door herself to her
cousin. The cook was gone out, and the house-servant, who was also the
nurse, was doing some washing.

"Good-morning, dear child," replied Lisbeth, kissing her. "Is Wenceslas
in the studio?" she added in a whisper.

"No; he is in the drawing-room talking to Stidmann and Chanor."

"Can we be alone?" asked Lisbeth.

"Come into my room."

In this room, the hangings of pink-flowered chintz with green leaves on
a white ground, constantly exposed to the sun, were much faded, as was
the carpet. The muslin curtains had not been washed for many a day. The
smell of tobacco hung about the room; for Wenceslas, now an artist of
repute, and born a fine gentleman, left his cigar-ash on the arms of the
chairs and the prettiest pieces of furniture, as a man does to whom love
allows everything--a man rich enough to scorn vulgar carefulness.

"Now, then, let us talk over your affairs," said Lisbeth, seeing her
pretty cousin silent in the armchair into which she had dro