with nobility and courage, without shame, without defiance. What a strange being! Reason had passed through that brain, once open to every breezy influence, and closed the doors again behind all thoughtlessness. She still possessed the charms of her faultless teeth, her ineffable smile, her fresh, sweet, now subdued voice. She saw the impression her dress made upon me.
My clothes have this advantage—they speak for me and relieve me from all explanation. This is the question before me now; in the midst of the errors, and follies, and wickedness of my past life—they have been very many—I have become truly attached to a brave fellow who tried to extricate me from it all. It ruined him; he has no longer father nor mother. He is the Count . All he has today is an allowance of eighteen hundred francs from an old uncle, who will no longer see him; he is a consumptive, unable to work. I am two years older than he is, but he wants to marry me, to be certain that I will not leave him. With his title he could marry fortune and family. I have urged him to do so, but he will not. He believes he must die soon and has asked me to stay with him to the last; he loves me; I, too, love him, but as a child; it seems to me that I could be his mother. We are to be married; he insists that it is all settled. When we are married how can we live on eighteen hundred francs? We will not have another cent. He will do whatever I say. Advise me."
"Go to the country, the real country, and live there. In the first place the open air will be good for your invalid, everything will be cheaper, nobody will know your past life. You can rent a thatched cottage, you will have a peasant cook, you can wear wooden shoes, if necessary, and work a little kitchen garden; in fact, live like peasants, you will none the less be the Count and Countess Don't seek acquaintance, rather avoid them, and you will little by
