ifices
made for his sake.

"Eve and her girl friends have been working very hard, too," said Mme.
Chardon. "The wedding clothes and the house linen are all ready. The
girls are so fond of her, that, without letting her know about it, they
have covered the mattresses with white twill and a rose-colored
piping at the edges. So pretty! It makes one wish one were going to be
married."

Mother and daughter had spent all their little savings to furnish
David's home with the things of which a young bachelor never thinks.
They knew that he was furnishing with great splendor, for something
had been said about ordering a dinner-service from Limoges, and the two
women had striven to make Eve's contributions to the housekeeping worthy
of David's. This little emulation in love and generosity could but
bring the husband and wife into difficulties at the very outset of their
married life, with every sign of homely comfort about them, comfort that
might be regarded as positive luxury in a place so behind the times as
the Angouleme of those days.

As soon as Lucien saw his mother and David enter the bedroom with the
blue-and-white draperies and neat furniture that he knew, he slipped
away to Mme. de Bargeton. He found Nais at table with her husband; M.
de Bargeton's early morning walk had sharpened his appetite, and he was
breakfasting quite unconcernedly after all that had passed. Lucien saw
the dignified face of M. de Negrepelisse, the old provincial noble, a
relic of the old French _noblesse_, sitting beside Nais.

When Gentil announced M. de Rubempre, the white-headed old man gave him
a keen, curious glance; the father was anxious to form his own opinions
of this man whom his daughter had singled out for notice. Lucien's
extreme beauty made such a vivid impression upon him, that he could not
repress an approving glance; but at the same time he seemed to regard
the affair as a flirtation, a mere passing fancy on his daughter's
part. Breakfast over, Louise could leave her father and M. de Bargeton
together; she beckoned Lucien to follow her as she withdrew.

"Dear," she said, and the tones of her voice were half glad, half
melancholy, "I am going to Paris, and my father is taking Bargeton back
with him to the Escarbas, where he will stay during my absence. Mme.
d'Espard (she was a Blamont-Chauvry before her marriage) has great
influence herself, and influential relations. The d'Espards are
connections of ours; they are the older