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 CHAPTER II

THE MONTMIRAILS

Ladies first. Let us identify the pretty little girl in the gardens of Versailles, who answered to the name of Cerise, before we account for the presence of George Hamilton the page.

It is a thing well understood—it is an arrangement universally conceded in France—that marriages should be contracted on principles of practical utility, rather than on the vague assumption of a romantic and unsuitable preference. It was therefore with tranquil acquiescence, and feelings perfectly under control, that Thérèse de la Fierté, daughter of a line of dukes, found herself taken out of a convent and wedded to a chivalrous veteran, who could scarcely stand long enough at the altar, upon his well-shaped but infirm old legs, to make the necessary responses for the conversion of the beautiful brunette over against him into Madame la Marquise de Montmirail. The bridegroom was indeed infinitely more agitated than the bride. He had conducted several campaigns; he was a Marshal of France; he had even been married before, to a remarkably plain person, who adored him; he had undergone the necessary course of gallantry inflicted on men of his station at the Court and in the society to which he belonged; nevertheless, as he said to himself, he felt like a recruit in his first "affair" when he encountered the plunging fire of those black eyes, raking him front, and flanks, and centre, from under the bridal wreath and its drooping white lace veil.

Thérèse had indeed, in right of her mother, large black eyes as well as large West Indian possessions; and her