Valérie regarded the Englishman as a person of
boundless wealth. Living with him in the same
house, knowing all his concerns, encountering
his duns, and witnessing all the mean shifts to
which he was occasionally driven, she speedily
learned the bitter, and to her maddening
truth, that she had married a spendthrift, a
roué, an adventurer, a beggar.

To Blunt, the discovery that his wife was a
selfish, cold-hearted, unbearable woman, was a
surprise and a disappointment; but nothing
more. He was not squeamish; moral scruples
never troubled him; he was perfectly indifferent
to the opinion of the world. He could separate
from her, give her a maintenance or promise
her one and return to his old, gay, reckless
life.

But Valérie's position was different. Had
she been the best woman, that ever breathed,
she could not have smothered her contempt for
the heartless coxcomb who had so bitterly
deceived her, and afterwards so cruelly used her.
But Valérie was not a good woman; she
was a female harpy, whose whole aim and
ambition was to be richly dressed, to have
plenty of money, and to live in a constant
round of pleasures. Such being her character,
she did not merely despise Blunt, she hated
him with all the fierceness and malignity of a
fiend. And her loathing hatred of him culminated
and came to its darkest and worst just at
the time when a true woman's nature becomes
most softened, most tender, most capable of
trust and love and forgiveness.

The time of her fiercest and most implacable
hatred of her husband was when she first heard
the cry of her new-born babe. It should have
been a new bond of union. It was the cause
of irremediable and implacable hate. This sham
milord—this copper-gilt calf before whose
lacquered magnificence she had fallen down—
fallen down, not to be lifted up to the coveted
pinnacle of splendour and gaiety and pleasure,
but to be ruthlessly trodden over, debased,
degraded, spurned with the foot of contempt
this man, her husband, had robbed her of the
sunshine of her youth, cheated her of her golden
opportunity, darkened the high noon of her
days, and at length cast her from him, leaving
her with the consciousness—to her a hateful
one—of being a mother, the mother, too, of his
child.

This terrible Frenchwoman was impenetrable;
her heart—if she had a heart was a fortress
of implacability. She was so cold, so indurated
in her hate, so fierce in her purpose of
revenge, that one might have suspected her of
being literally possessed by a devil. She hated
Lily, the infant, because she was the child of the
man who had deceived her, ill used her, and
disappointed her of her selfish expectations; she
hated Lily, the girl, because, while she promised
to be an instrument of vengeance in her hands,
she was yet a burden and a trouble to her. If
she relented a little towards her now, it was not
because of the awakening of any latent spark of
maternal feeling in her breast of steel, but
because she was making some profit out of the
girl, and saw a prospect of making still more.
She relented towards her as a brute of a coster-
monger will relent towards the ass that bears his
burden, and earns for him his meat and his drink
and his pleasures.

After her interview with Mr. M?Variety, the
countess was quite pleasant, to the girl, after a
fashion. Lily had never known her speak so
kindly before. Poor Lily! She was thankful
for very small mercies in the way of kindness.
She was grateful for the veriest crumbs. The
countess returned to her dressing-room with a
look of triumph in her face, singing a snatch of
one of her favourite French songs.

"You perceive, mademoiselle, that I am gay
this evening," she said, addressing Lily.

"Yes, ma——" Lily paused at the word,
and the countess took her up short, slapping
her riding-habit with her whip.

"'Yes, madam,' you were about to say. I
did not tell you that you were to call me
mother; but that you were to regard me as such,
and obey me as such. I hate the word. You
rejoice that I am gay n'est-ce pas?"

"Yes, I am glad that you are gay," Lily replied.

"Bien," said the countess, "that is dutiful;
and you shall be rewarded; you shall sit up
with me to supper in my new chateau. Quick!
Assist me to undress."

This was the kindness for which Lily was so
grateful.

The countess submitted herself to the hands
of her fille-de-chambre without indulging in the
usual ebullitions of temper, and when she was
dressed, insisted upon Lily walking by her side,
and talking to her on her way through the
gardens to the Cottage.

"We shall live here," she said, "until the
commencement of the summer season, as
Monsieur le Directeur calls it; and in the meantime
I shall teach you to ride. You know nothing, you
are ignorant, useless. I work for my living;
why should not you for yours? I work for you,
now. By-and-by, when I am old and can no
longer give an exposition of thehaute-école, you
will show your gratitude for all I have done for
you by working for me. Will you not?
Répondez-moi done!"

"I will do anything you ask me," Lily
replied. But she shuddered at the idea of
becoming a horse-rider.

"Tres bien!" said the countess, "you are
still dutiful, so you shall sup with me. Allons!
Entrons!"

There was more good news for the countess;
another pleasant surprise.

A servant had called with a large hamper
containing an elegant supper and several bottles of
wine. Mrs. Snuffburn was at the foot of the
stairs, in a high state of excitement with the
intelligence.

"Who was the person who brought this
—what you call it—hampaire?" the countess
asked.

"it was brought by a livery-servant, mum,"