Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/24

 light-haired rivals were good enough to attribute the rich radiance of her beauty to a stain of negro blood somewhere far back in that mother's race.

Nevertheless, the old Marquis de Montmirail was really over head and ears in love with his brilliant bride. That he should have indulged her in every whim and every folly was but reasonably to be expected, but that she should always have shown for him the warm affection of a wife, tempered by the deference and respect of a daughter, is only another instance, added to the long score on record of woman's sympathy and right feeling when treated with gentleness and consideration.

Not even at Court did Madame de Montmirail give a single opportunity to the thousand tongues of scandal during her husband's lifetime; she was indeed notorious for sustaining the elaborate homage and tedious admiration of majesty itself, without betraying, by the flutter of an eyelash, that ambition was roused or vanity gratified during the ordeal. It seemed that she cared but for three people in the world. The chivalrous old wreck who had married her, and who was soon compelled to move about in a wheeled chair; the lovely little daughter born of their union, who inherited much of her mother's effective beauty with the traditional grace and delicate complexion of the handsome Montmirails, a combination that had helped to distinguish her by the appropriate name of Cerise, and the young Abbé Malletort, a distant cousin of her own, as remarkable for shrewd intellect and utter want of sentiment as for symmetry of figure and signal ugliness of face. The Grand Monarque was not famous for consideration towards the nobles of his household. Long after the Marquis de Montmirail had commenced taking exercise on his own account in a chair, the king commanded his attendance at a shooting-party, kept him standing for three-quarters of an hour on damp grass, under heavy rain, and dismissed him with a pompous compliment, and an attack of gout driven upwards into the region of the stomach. The old courtier knew he had got his death-blow. The old soldier faced it like an officer of France. He sent for Madame la Marquise, and complimented her on her coiffure before proceeding to business. He apologised for the pains that took off his attention at intervals, and