their dreams for reality; secretly, in their long meditations, they
resolve to give their heart and hand to none but the man possessing
this or the other qualification; and they paint in fancy a model to
which, whether or no, the future lover must correspond. After some
little experience of life, and the serious reflections that come with
years, by dint of seeing the world and its prosaic round, by dint of
observing unhappy examples, the brilliant hues of their ideal are
extinguished. Then, one fine day, in the course of events, they are
quite astonished to find themselves happy without the nuptial poetry
of their day-dreams. It was on the strength of that poetry that
Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, in her slender wisdom, had drawn up a
programme to which a suitor must conform to be excepted. Hence her
disdain and sarcasm.

"Though young and of an ancient family, he must be a peer of France,"
said she to herself. "I could not bear not to see my coat-of-arms on
the panels of my carriage among the folds of azure mantling, not to
drive like the princes down the broad walk of the Champs-Elysees on
the days of Longchamps in Holy Week. Besides, my father says that it
will someday be the highest dignity in France. He must be a soldier
--but I reserve the right of making him retire; and he must bear an
Order, that the sentries may present arms to us."

And these rare qualifications would count for nothing if this creature
of fancy had not the most amiable temper, a fine figure, intelligence,
and, above all, if he were not slender. To be lean, a personal grace
which is but fugitive, especially under a representative government,
was an indispensable condition. Mademoiselle de Fontaine had an ideal
standard which was to be the model. A young man who at the first
glance did not fulfil the requisite conditions did not even get a