.

"Good-day, my pretty wife."

"Good-day, sir."

"Are you well to-day?"

"No."

"Hey? that's a pity; what ails you, my charming little wife?"

"Solitude."

"Solitude! pooh, pooh! why, there is Julie."

"Julie has her _young_ lover to think of."

"And when you weary of her," he continued, resolved not to perceive the
slight but malicious emphasis, "you have got your own sweet thoughts to
retire upon."

"My thoughts are ill company, sir."

"Well, as it seems to me, the pretty child is out of temper to-day," he
said, with evident chagrin.

"Perhaps I am--it is natural--I should be a fool were I otherwise."

"Par bleu! what new calamity is this?" he asked, with a smile and a
shrug.

"Nothing new, sir."

"Well, what _old_ calamity?"

The past night had wrought a change in Lucille; and, little as she had
ever liked M. Le Prun, she now felt a positive hatred of him, and she
answered with a gloomy sort of recklessness--

"Sir, I am a prisoner."

"Tut, tut! pretty rogue."

"Yes, a prisoner; _your_ prisoner."

"A prisoner on parole, perhaps; but provided, pretty captive, you don't
desert me, you may wander where you will."

"Pshaw! that is nonsense," she said sharply.

"Nonsense!" he repeated, testily; "it is no such thing, madame; you have
the handsomest equipages in France. Pray, when did I refuse you
carriages, or horses, or free egress from this place? par bleu! or lock
the gates, madame? Treated as you are, how _can_ you call yourself a
prisoner?"

"What advantage in carriages, and horses, and open gates, when we are
surrounded by a desert?"

"A desert? what do you mean?"

"There is not a soul to speak to."

"Not a soul--why, you are jesting; pray, is the Marquise de Pompignaud
nobody? is the Conte de la Perriere nobody?"

"_Worse_ than nobody, monsieur: I should prefer a desert to a wilderness
haunted by such creatures."

"_Sacre!_ what does the child want?"

"What every wife in France commands--society, sir."

"Well, I say you have got it: independently of your immediate domestic
circle, you have a neighborhood such as ought to satisfy any reasonable
person. There are persons fully as well descended as yourself, and
others nearly as rich as I am, all within easy visiting distance."

"The rich are all plebeians, and the nobles are all poor; there is and
can be in a group so incongruous no cordiality, no gayety, no splendor;
in a word, no such society as the last descendant of the