thoughtful. Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et passionés, ne sont pas à mon gout. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better. Va pour les beaux fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les plaisirs! A bas les grandes passions et les sévères vertus!".
She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
"J'aime mon beau colonel", she went on: Je n'aimerai jamais son rival. Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should be relieved of the honor of her presence: she went away laughing.
CHAPTER X.
dr. john
Madame beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous about her family, vigilant for their interests, and physical well-being; but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the loving word.
I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little ones afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their bonne: in her mien spoke care and prudence: I know she often pondered anxiously what she called "leur avenir", but if the youngest, a puny and delicate, but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and panting to clasp her knee, madame would just calmly put out one hand, so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child's sudden outset: "Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say unmoved, patiently permit it to stand near her
