was very pleasant and sociable. Only in an evil
hour it came into her head to say that she must present
us to her mother—her mother wished to know
your friends. I didn’t want to know her
mother, and I was on the point of telling Lizzie to
go in alone and let me wait for her outside.
But Lizzie, with her usual infernal ingenuity, guessed
my purpose and reduced me by a glance of her eye.
So they marched off arm in arm, and I followed as
I could. We found the old lady in her arm-chair,
twiddling her aristocratic thumbs. She looked
at Lizzie from head to foot; but at that game Lizzie,
to do her justice, was a match for her. My wife
told her we were great friends of Mr. Newman.
The marquise started a moment, and then said, ’Oh,
Mr. Newman! My daughter has made up her mind to
marry a Mr. Newman.’ Then Madame de Cintre
began to fondle Lizzie again, and said it was this
dear lady that had planned the match and brought them
together. ’Oh, ’tis you I have to
thank for my American son-in-law,’ the old lady
said to Mrs. Tristram. ’It was a very clever
thought of yours. Be sure of my gratitude.’
And then she began to look at me and presently said,
’Pray, are you engaged in some species of manufacture?’
I wanted to say that I manufactured broom-sticks for
old witches to ride on, but Lizzie got in ahead of
me. ’My husband, Madame la Marquise,’
she said, ’belongs to that unfortunate class
of persons who have no profession and no business,
and do very little good in the world.’
To get her poke at the old woman she didn’t care
where she shoved me. ‘Dear me,’ said
the marquise, ‘we all have our duties.’
’I am sorry mine compel me to take leave of
you,’ said Lizzie. And we bundled out again.
But you have a mother-in-law, in all the force of the
term.”
“Oh,” said Newman, “my mother-in-law
desires nothing better than to let me alone.”
Betimes, on the evening of the 27th, he went to Madame
de Bellegarde’s ball. The old house in
the Rue de l’Universite looked strangely brilliant.
In the circle of light projected from the outer gate
a detachment of the populace stood watching the carriages
roll in; the court was illumined with flaring torches
and the portico carpeted with crimson. When Newman
arrived there were but a few people present. The
marquise and her two daughters were at the top of the
staircase, where the sallow old nymph in the angle
peeped out from a bower of plants. Madame de
Bellegarde, in purple and fine laces, looked like an
old lady painted by Vandyke; Madame de Cintre was
dressed in white. The old lady greeted Newman
with majestic formality, and looking round her, called
several of the persons who were standing near.
They were elderly gentlemen, of what Valentin de Bellegarde
had designated as the high-nosed category; two or
three of them wore cordons and stars. They approached
with measured alertness, and the marquise said that
she wished to present them to Mr. Newman, who was
going to marry her daughter. Then she introduced