d from her lips. What!--"struggle
for life" with those little delicate, soft, childlike hands? How absurd!
She laughed at the idea now, and all those who heard her laughed with
her; Marien laughed more than any one. He, who had befriended her in her
days of adversity, seemed to retain for the Baroness in her prosperity
the same respectful and discreet devotion he had shown her as
Mademoiselle Hecker. He had sent a wonderful portrait of her, as the wife
of M. de Nailles, to the Salon--a portrait that the richer electors of
Grandchaux, who had voted for her husband and who could afford to travel,
gazed at with satisfaction, congratulating themselves that they had a
deputy who had married so pretty a woman. It even seemed as if the beauty
of Madame de Nailles belonged in some sort to the arrondissement, so
proud were those who lived there of having their share in her charms.

Another portrait--that of M. de Nailles himself--was sent down to
Limouzin from Paris, and all the peasants in the country round were
invited to come and look at it. That also produced a very favorable
impression on the rustic public, and added to the popularity of their
deputy. Never had the proprietor of Grandchaux looked so grave, so
dignified, so majestic, so absorbed in deep reflection, as he looked
standing beside a table covered with papers--papers, no doubt, all having
relation to local interests, important to the public and to individuals.
It was the very figure of a statesman destined to high dignities. No one
who gazed on such a deputy could doubt that one day he would be in the
ministry.

It was by such real services that Marien endeavored to repay the
friendship and the kindness always awaiting him in the small house in the
Parc Monceau, where we have just seen Jacqueline eagerly offering him
some spiced cakes. To complete what seemed due to the household there
only remained to paint the curiously expressive features of the girl at
whom he had been looking that very day with more than ordinary attention.
Once already, when Jacqueline was hardly out of baby-clothes, the great
painter had made an admirable sketch of her tousled head, a sketch in
which she looked like a little imp of darkness, and this sketch Madame de
Nailles took pains should always be seen, but it bore no resemblance to
the slender young girl who was on the eve of becoming, whatever might be
done to arrest her development, a beautiful young woman. Jacqueline
disliked to