Her beautiful brow, and the glance she turned sometimes on the ground at her feet, sometimes on the foliage around, evidently seeing nothing, betrayed some deep anxiety,--all the more unconsciously because she supposed herself alone.
"Just as I was envying her! What can have saddened her ?" whispered the countess to the abbe.
"Madame," he replied in the same tone, "tell me why man is often seized with vague and unaccountable presentiments of evil in the very midst of some perfect happiness ?" "Abbe!" said Blondet, smiling, "you talk like a bishop.

Napoleon said, 'Nothing is stolen, all is bought!'" "Such a maxim, uttered by those imperial lips, takes the proportions of society itself," replied the priest.
"Well, Olympe, my dear girl, what is the matter ?" said the countess going up to her former maid.

"You seem sad and thoughtful; is it a lover's quarrel ?" Madame Michaud's face, as she rose, changed completely.
"My dear," said Emile Blondet, in a fatherly tone, "I should like to know what clouds that brow of yours, in this pavilion where you are almost as well lodged as the Comte d'Artois at the Tuileries.

It is like a nest of nightingales in a grove! And what a husband we have!--the bravest fellow of the young garde, and a handsome one, who loves us to distraction! If I had known the advantages Montcornet has given you here I should have left my diatribing business and made myself a bailiff." "It is not the place for a man of your talent, monsieur," replied Olympe, smiling at Blondet as an old acquaintance.
"But what troubles you, dear ?" said the countess.
"Madame, I'm afraid--" "Afraid! of what ?" said the countess, eagerly; for the word reminded her of Mouche and Fourchon.
"Afraid of the wolves, is that it ?" said Emile, making Madame Michaud a sign, which she did not understand.
"No, monsieur,--afraid of the peasants.

I was born in Le Perche, where of course there are some bad people, but I had no idea how wicked people could be until I came here.