taken away from the convent before the
beginning of the holidays. Since she had fully arranged the marriage with
M. de Talbrun, it seemed important that Giselle should acquire some
liveliness, and recruit her health, before the fatal wedding-day arrived.
M. de Talbrun liked ladies to be always well and always lively, and it
was her duty to see that Giselle accommodated herself to his taste;
sea-bathing, life in the open air, and merry companions, were the things
she needed to make her a little less thin, to give her tone, and to take
some of her convent stiffness out of her. Besides, she could have free
intercourse with her intended husband, thanks to the greater freedom of
manners permitted at the sea-side. Such were the ideas of Madame de
Monredon.

Poor Giselle! In vain they dressed her in fine clothes, in vain they
talked to her and scolded her from morning till night, she continued to
be the little convent-bred schoolgirl she had always been; with downcast
eyes, pale as a flower that has known no sunlight, and timid to a point
of suffering. M. de Talbrun frightened her as much as ever, and she had
looked forward to the comfort of weeping in the arms of Jacqueline, who,
the last time she had seen her, had been herself so unhappy. But what was
her astonishment to find the young girl, who, a few weeks before, had
made her such tragic confidences through the grille in the convent
parlor, transformed into a creature bent on excitement and amusement.
When she attempted to allude to the subject on which Jacqueline had
spoken to her at the convent, and to ask her what it was that had then
made her so unhappy, Jacqueline cried: "Oh! my dear, I have forgotten all
about it!" But there was exaggeration in this profession of
forgetfulness, and she hurriedly drew Giselle back to the game of
croquet, where they were joined by M. de Talbrun.

The future husband of Giselle was a stout young fellow, short and
thick-set, with broad shoulders, a large flat face, and strong jaws,
ornamented with an enormous pair of whiskers, which partly compensated
him for a loss of hair. He had never done anything but shoot and hunt
over his property nine months in the year, and spend the other three
months in Paris, where the jockey Club and ballet-dancers sufficed for
his amusement. He did not pretend to be a man whose bachelor life had
been altogether blameless, but he considered himself to be a "correct"
man, according to what he understood by