enjoined upon Edouard to forgive him his escapade in their name, if he should ever find him.

Edouard was left master of his actions. He was twenty-two years old, and had a place worth two thousand francs a year; he could live respectably by behaving himself. He loved pleasure; but society, music, the theatre, offered him pleasures which cost him little; it never occurred to him to gamble. He was fond of ladies’ society; but he was not bad-looking and had no reason to complain of their severity. He allowed himself to be led astray easily, and had not sufficient strength of character; but luckily for him, he was not intimate with men of dissolute habits. In a word, he could not be cited as a model to be followed, but on the other hand, he had no very great faults.

So that Madame Germeuil readily decided to give her Adeline to Edouard Murville.

“This young man will make my daughter happy,” she said to herself; “he has not much strength of character; very good! then my dear child will be the mistress, and households where the wives rule are often the best conducted.”

And that is why there was a wedding party at the Cadran-Bleu.

II

GREAT EVENTS CAUSED BY A JIG AND A SNUFF BOX

“How pretty she is! What a fine figure she has! What charm and freshness!” said the young men, and even the fathers, to one another, as they watched the bride and followed her every motion when she danced. “Ah! what a lucky fellow that Edouard is!”

Such was the general opinion.

Edouard heard all this; he was in fact as happy as a man can be when he is on the point of becoming entirely happy. To conceal his desires, his impatience, he skipped and danced about, and did not keep still one minute. From time to time he went into the corridor to consult his watch; it was still too early—not for him! but he must spare his wife’s blushes; and what would the company say; what would his wife’s mother say? Well! he must wait; oh! how long that day had been! Poor husband and wife! It is the brightest day in all your lives, and yet you wish that it were already passed! Man is never content.

“The bridegroom looks to be very much in love!” said all the married ladies; the unmarried ones did not say so, but they thought it.

“Ah! Monsieur Volenville, that is the way you looked at me twenty-two years ago,” said, with a sigh, to her husband, a lady of forty-five, overladen with rouge, flowers, laces and ribbons, who sat in a corner of the ball-room, where she had been waiting in vain since dinner for a partner to present himself. Monsieur Volenville, formerly a frequent attendant at the balls at Sceaux, and now an auctioneer in the Marais, did not answer his wife, but took a pinch of snuff and went into the next room to watch a game of écarté.

Madame Volenville testily changed her place, which she had done already several times. She placed herself between two young women, hoping apparently that that side of the room would be invited in a body, and that she would thus be included in the dancers. But her hope was disappointed once more; she saw young men coming toward her, she nodded her head gracefully, smiled, and put out her foot, which was not unshapely. They approached; but oh, woe! they addressed themselves to her right or to her left, and seemed to pay no attention to her and her soft glances and her pretty foot.

It is really most unpleasant to be a wall-flower, and Madame Volenville, not knowing what method to employ to attract a partner, deliberated whether to show the lower part of her leg; it had formerly performed miracles, and it would be as well to try its power, as the foot produced no effect.

She decided to do it; the lower part of the calf was about to be shown as modestly as possible, when suddenly there was a loud call for a fourth couple to fill up a quadrille. There were no more ladies remaining; some had left the party, and all the rest were on the floor. A young man, well-curled and well-perfumed, glanced about the ball-room; he spied the auctioneer’s wife, resigned himself to his fate, and walked gravely toward her to ask her to dance. Madame Volenville did not give the young man time to finish his invitation; she rose, darted toward him, seized his hand, and squeezed it so that she almost made him cry out. Our dandy jumped back; he concluded that the poor woman was subject to hysterical attacks; he gazed at her uneasily, not knowing what course to pursue; but Madame Volenville gave him little time for reflection: she dragged him roughly away toward the incomplete quadrille; she took her place, bowed to her partner, and led him through the cat’s tail and the ladies’ chain, before he had recovered from his bewilderment.

The heroic and free-and-easy manner of Madame Volenville’s dancing created a sensation; a confused murmur ran through the salon and the young men left the card-table for the place where our auctioneeress was performing. She considered this eagerness to watch her very flattering, and was enchanted by it; she danced with redoubled fire and animation, and tried to electrify her partner, who did not seem to share her vivacity; flushing with rage when he saw the circle which had formed about him, and heard the sarcastic compliments which the young men addressed to him, and the spiteful remarks of the young women, he bit his lips, clenched his fists, and would have given all that he possessed to have the quadrille come to a close. But Madame Volenville left him but little time to himself; she was almost always in the air; she insisted upon balancing, or going forward and back, all the time, despite the remonstrances of her partner, who said to her until he was hoarse:

“It isn’t our turn, madame; in a minute; that figure is finished; pray stop!”

But Madame Volenville was started, and she was determined to make up to herself for five hours of waiting; and when by chance she did pause for a second, her glance rested complacently upon the large crowd which surrounded her; and as with her handkerchief she wiped away the drops of perspiration which stood on her brow, her eyes seemed to say to the throng:

“You didn’t expect to see such dancing as this, eh? Another time, perhaps you will ask me!”

Meanwhile the torture of Belcour—that was the name of Madame Volenville’s partner—was approaching its end; the quadrille was almost finished; already they had thrice performed the famous chassez les huit; once more, and all would have been over, when a young notary’s clerk, a mischievous joker, who loved a laugh, like most of his fellows, conceived the idea of running to the orchestra, and asking for a jig in the name of the whole company. The musicians at a wedding party never refuse any request, and they began to play a jig at the moment that Belcour bowed to Madame Volenville and attempted to slink away.

The voice of Orpheus imploring the gods of the infernal regions did not produce so much effect upon Pluto as the strains of the violins and the air of the jig produced upon Madame Volenville.

“Monsieur! monsieur! it isn’t over yet,” she cried to Belcour, who was walking away. He pretended not to hear, and was already near the door of the salon, when Madame Volenville ran after him, caught him and arrested his steps.

“Monsieur, what are you doing? Don’t you hear the violins? Ah! what a pretty tune! it’s a jig; come quickly!”

“A thousand pardons, madame, but I thought——”

“It is a jig, monsieur, and I love that dance to madness!”

“Madame, I do not feel very well, and——”

“You shall see my English steps; it was while dancing the jig that I used to make so many conquests.”

“Madame, I would like a breath of fresh air——”

“And indeed that I fascinated—I attracted my husband, at the ball at Sceaux.”

“But,