r like some one of importance, here comes a
sleek and tawny mastiff, with the silvery tinkle of a trinket which
gleams on his neck. He is proclaiming and preceding his young
mistress, Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon, who is riding her pony. The
little girl caracoles sedately, clad in a riding habit, and armed with
a crop. She has been an orphan for a long time. She is the mistress
of the castle. She is twelve years old and has millions. A mounted
groom in full livery follows her, looking like a stage-player or a
chamberlain; and then, with measured steps, an elderly governess,
dressed in black silk, and manifestly thinking of some Court.

Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon and her pretty name set us thinking of
Antoinette, who hardly has a name; and it seems to us that these two
are the only ones who have passed before our eyes. The difference in
the earthly fates of these two creatures who have both the same fragile
innocence, the same pure and complete incapacity of childhood, plunges
us into a tragedy of thought. The misery and the might which have
fallen on those little immature heads are equally undeserved. It is a
disgrace for men to see a poor child; it is also a disgrace for men to
see a rich child.

I feel malicious towards the little sumptuous princess who has just
appeared, already haughty in spite of her littleness; and I am stirred
with pity for the frail victim whom life is obliterating with all its
might; and Marie, I can see, gentle Marie, has the same thoughts. Who
would not feel them in face of this twin picture of childhood which a
passing chance has brought us, of this one picture torn in two?

But I resist this emotion; the understanding of things must be based,
not on sentiment, but on reason. There must be justice, not charity.
Kindness is solitary. Compassion becomes one with him whom we pity; it
allows us to fathom him, to understand him alone amongst the rest; but
it blurs and befogs the laws of the whole. I must set off with a clear
idea, like the beam of a lighthouse through the deformities and
temptations of night.

As I have seen equality, I am seeing inequality. Equality in truth;
inequality in fact. We observe in man's beginning the beginning of his
hurt; the root of the error is in inheritance.

Injustice, artificial and groundless authority, royalty without reason,
the fantastic freaks of fortune which suddenly put crowns on heads! It
is there, as far as the monstrous