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to himself, now came down. Happily, it was only eleven o'clock. The
true Parisian! he had put as much dandyism into his dress as if he
were in the chateau of the noble lady then travelling in Scotland. He
came into the room with the smiling, courteous manner so becoming to
youth, which made Eugenie's heart beat with mournful joy. He had taken
the destruction of his castles in Anjou as a joke, and came up to his
aunt gaily.

"Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my cousin?"

"Very well, monsieur; did you?" said Madame Grandet.

"I? perfectly."

"You must be hungry, cousin," said Eugenie; "will you take your seat?"

"I never breakfast before midday; I never get up till then. However, I
fared so badly on the journey that I am glad to eat something at once.
Besides--" here he pulled out the prettiest watch Breguet ever made.
"Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven o'clock!"

"Early?" said Madame Grandet.

"Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. Well, I shall be glad to
have anything to eat,--anything, it doesn't matter what, a chicken, a
partridge."

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the words.

"A partridge!" whispered Eugenie to herself; she would gladly have
given the whole of her little hoard for a partridge.

"Come and sit down," said his aunt.

The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a pretty
woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother took
ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.

"Do you always live here?" said Charles, thinking the room uglier by
daylight than it had seemed the night before.

"Always," answered Eugenie, looking at him, "except during the
vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des
Noyers."

"Don't you ever take walks?"

"Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine," said
Madame Grandet, "we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch the
haymakers."

"Have you a theatre?"

"Go to the theatre!" exclaimed Madame Grandet, "see a play! Why,
monsieur, don't you know it is a mortal sin?"

"See here, monsieur," said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, "here are your
chickens,--in the shell."

"Oh! fresh eggs," said Charles, who, like all people accustomed to
luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge, "that is delicious:
now, if you will give me the butter, my good girl."

"Butter! then you can't have the _galette_."

"Nanon, bring the butter," cried Eugenie.

The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his sippets, with as much
pleasure as a grisette takes in a melodrama where innocence and virtue
triumph. Charles, brought up by a charming mother, improved, and
trained by a woman of fashion, had the elegant, dainty, foppish
movements of a coxcomb. The compassionate sympathy and tenderness of a
young girl possess a power that is actually magnetic; so that Charles,
finding himself the object of the attentions of his aunt and cousin,

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