through the window-panes, placing the feathers to her head to see the
effect, and he fancied he could hear the conversation between herself
and the shop-woman.

"Oh! madame, nothing is more suitable for brunettes: brunettes have
something a little too strongly marked in their lines, and marabouts
give them just that _flow_ which they lack. Madame la Duchesse de
Langeais says they give a woman something vague, Ossianic, and very
high-bred."

"Very good; send them to me at once."

Then the lady turned quickly toward the rue de Menars, and entered her
own house. When the door closed on her, the young lover, having lost
his hopes, and worse, far worse, his dearest beliefs, walked through
the streets like a drunken man, and presently found himself in his own
room without knowing how he came there. He flung himself into an
arm-chair, put his head in his hands and his feet on the andirons,
drying his boots until he burned them. It was an awful moment,--one of
those moments in human life when the character is moulded, and the
future conduct of the best of men depends on the good or evil fortune
of his first action. Providence or fatality?--choose which you will.

This young man belonged to a good family, whose nobility was not very
ancient; but there are so few really old families in these days, that
all men of rank are ancient without dispute. His grandfather had
bought the office of counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, where he
afterwards became president. His sons, each provided with a handsome
fortune, entered the army, and through their marriages became attached
to the court. The Revolution swept the family away; but one old