“The majority of the ministers of the Restoration were chosen from among the people.  In relation to this, I admit all the reasonings of the philosophers of the eighteenth century, and of the liberals of our own times.  In them I find expansion of heart, intelligence, and I care not for genealogy.  The qualities of mind, grace and beauty seem to me signs of distinction marked by the finger of God, who is wiser far than D’Hozier.[A] I cannot, however, forget that this race of nobles, so cruelly persecuted thirty years ago, so often trampled on in our own times, was the glory and the power of France.  I was forced with pain to see with what incessant malignity this race, though stripped of its ancient power, was attacked.  I have often said that in sapping the foundations of the aristocratic edifice, that in crushing the legitimacy of the nobles, an attack was made on the legitimacy of monarchy.  The revolution just over has but too well justified my apprehensions.  This revolution which by a species of criminal conversion, selects one of the old royal blood to occupy the throne of the exile, which selects the one nearest the throne, is perhaps but the first of a series of convulsions, in which will be engulfed, by ambition and pride, the wisdom and experience of the past.”

[Footnote A:  A genealogist of great repute in France, twenty years since.]

This conversation between the uncle and nephew was interrupted by the sound of a horse’s hoofs, dragging a sleigh rapidly toward the door of the house.

“That is beyond doubt my future son-in-law,” said M. de Vermondans, “another philosopher, who, like yourself, does not in every respect agree with you.  He is, however, a good fellow, who under a by no means aristocratic exterior conceals the noblest qualities.”

When she heard the sleigh, Alete ran to the door sill; and Ebba followed him.  At the appearance of the two sisters, like a rose and a lily, the young man hastened to divest himself of the thick fur which enwrapped him, sprang from the sleigh, and hastened to his betrothed.  He had not, however, remembered the caprice of Alete, who, instead of giving him her hand as usual, looked sternly at him, and said: 

“Sir, you are incorrigible.  How comes that waistcoat to be buttoned wrong?  And why has that cravat wings, like those of a crow?  Why does your shirt-collar come up to your ears?  Is this the fruit of the lessons on the toilette, which I have so often given you?  Did I not also order you to attend to your hair, and not let it fall on your shoulder, like two bundles of flax, in disorder?  You do not know that we have here a cousin from Paris, who will take you for a Goth, or the Lord knows what.”

The poor young man, stupefied at this reception, looked down mechanically, with his hand on his waistcoat and his cravat, and did not dare to approach his rigorous mistress.

“Alete, Alete,” said Ebba, with a voice of supplication, “how can you be so cruel!”