most contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one
knew better than she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of
talent was introduced to her, or how to display the insulting
politeness which treats an equal as an inferior, and to pour out her
impertinence on all who tried to hold their heads on a level with
hers. Wherever she went she seemed to be accepting homage rather than
compliments, and even in a princess her airs and manner would have
transformed the chair on which she sat into an imperial throne.

Monsieur de Fontaine discovered too late how utterly the education of
the daughter he loved had been ruined by the tender devotion of the
whole family. The admiration which the world is at first ready to
bestow on a young girl, but for which, sooner or later, it takes
its revenge, had added to Emilie's pride, and increased her
self-confidence. Universal subservience had developed in her the
selfishness natural to spoilt children, who, like kings, make a
plaything of everything that comes to hand. As yet the graces of
youth and the charms of talent hid these faults from every eye; faults
all the more odious in a woman, since she can only please by
self-sacrifice and unselfishness; but nothing escapes the eye of a
good father, and Monsieur de Fontaine often tried to explain to his
daughter the more important pages of the mysterious book of life. Vain
effort! He had to lament his daughter's capricious indocility and
ironical shrewdness too often to persevere in a task so difficult as
that of correcting an ill-disposed nature. He contented himself with
giving her from time to time some gentle and kind advice; but he had
the sorrow of seeing his tenderest words slide from his daughter's
heart as if it were of marble. A father's eyes are slow to be
unsealed, and it needed more than one experience before the old
Royalist perceived that his daughter's rare caresses were bestowed on