Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/32

22 of comprehension, and, where she loved, her sympathy was flawless. She was always willing to welcome and adopt the thought of another, and never seemed to guess how much of force and brilliancy it owed to the illuminating power of her own vivid intellect.

On M. Necker's retirement from the Ministry of Finance, he came to St. Ouen, followed in his retreat by the pity and praise of the best and brightest minds of France. His daughter, seeing more of him than ever, now, in the greater leisure which he enjoyed, and regarding him as the heroic victim of an infamous political cabal, soon conceived for him an affection that amounted to idolatry. On his side he was enchanted with her humorous gaiety, and lent himself to her playfulness in the not rare moments when Germaine's small sum of years got the better of her large amount of intelligence.

One day Madame Necker had been called from the dining-room, during meal time, on some domestic or other business. Returning unexpectedly, she heard a good deal of noise, and, opening the door, stood transfixed with amazement on seeing her husband and daughter capering about, with their table-napkins twisted round their heads like turbans. Both culprits looked rather ashamed of themselves when detected, and their spirits fell to zero beneath the lady's frozen glance.

The Neckers, in spite of the ex-minister's so-called "disgrace," continued surrounded with friends, so that from fifteen to twenty, at which latter age she married, Germaine's days were one long intellectual triumph.

Her portraits read aloud to the guests, were