“’Monsieur Vitremont is dead, and leaves two hundred and eighty thousand francs,’ says the associate judge, a young man of forty-seven, who is as entertaining as a northwest wind.

“‘Are you quite sure of that?’

“The that refers to the two hundred and eighty thousand francs.  A little judge then holds forth, he runs over the investments, the others discuss their value, and it is definitely settled that if he has not left two hundred and eighty thousand, he left something near it.

“Then comes a universal concert of eulogy heaped upon the dead man’s body, for having kept his bread under lock and key, for having shrewdly invested his little savings accumulated sou by sou, in order, probably, that the whole city and those who expect legacies may applaud and exclaim in admiration, ’He leaves two hundred and eighty thousand francs!’ Now everybody has rich relations of whom they say ‘Will he leave anything like it?’ and thus they discuss the quick as they have discussed the dead.

“They talk of nothing but the prospects of fortune, the prospects of a vacancy in office, the prospects of the harvest.

“When we were children, and used to look at those pretty little white mice, in the cobbler’s window in the rue St. Maclou, that turned and turned the circular cage in which they were imprisoned, how far I was from thinking that they would one day be a faithful image of my life!

“Think of it, my being in this condition!—­I who fluttered my wings so much more than you, I whose imagination was so vagabond!  My sins have been greater than yours, and I am the more severely punished.  I have bidden farewell to my dreams:  I am Madame la Presidente in all my glory, and I resign myself to giving my arm for forty years to my big awkward Roulandiere, to living meanly in every way, and to having forever before me two heavy brows and two wall-eyes pierced in a yellow face, which is destined never to know what it is to smile.

“But you, Caroline dear, you who, between ourselves, were admitted among the big girls while I still gamboled among the little ones, you whose only sin was pride, you,—­at the age of twenty-seven, and with a dowry of two hundred thousand francs,—­capture and captivate a truly great man, one of the wittiest men in Paris, one of the two talented men that our village has produced.—­What luck!

“You now circulate in the most brilliant society of Paris.  Thanks to the sublime privileges of genius.  You may appear in all the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, and be cordially received.  You have the exquisite enjoyment of the company of the two or three celebrated women of our age, where so many good things are said, where the happy speeches which arrive out here like Congreve rockets, are first fired off.  You go to the Baron Schinner’s of whom Adolphe so often spoke to us, whom all the great artists and foreigners of celebrity visit.  In short, before long, you will be one of the queens of Paris, if you wish.  You can receive, too, and have at your house the lions of literature, fashion and finance, whether male or female, for Adolphe spoke in such terms about his illustrious friendships and his intimacy with the favorites of the hour, that I imagine you giving and receiving honors.