CHAPTER VII.
BREAKERS.
"Stay at home with us this evening," prayed Elise the next day, and for several other days, and the Candidate stayed.
Never before had he seen Elise so kind, so cordial towards him; never before had she shown him so much attention as now; and this attention, this cordiality from a lady who, in her intercourse with men, was generally only polite and indifferent, flattered his vanity, at the same time that it penetrated his good heart.

All occasion for explanation and lectures vanished, for the Candidate had entirely renounced his dissipated friends and companions, and now nobody could talk more edifying than he on the subject.

He agreed so cordially with Elise, that the fleeting champagne of the orgies foamed only for the moment, leaving nothing but emptiness and flatness behind.

"For once, nay, for a few times," he was of opinion, "such excesses might be harmless, perhaps even refreshing; but often repeated--ah! that would be prejudicial, and demoralising in the highest degree!" All this seemed to the little Queen-bee, who had heard it, remarkably well expressed.
Nobody seemed now better pleased at home than Jacobi; he felt himself so well in the regular course of life which he led, and there seemed so much that was genuine and fresh in the occupations and pleasures of those quiet days at home.
In the mean time, the fresh life of the Candidate began to develop its weak side.

Gratitude had, in the first instance, warmed Elise's heart towards him, and then his own real amiability made it so easy to gratify the wish of her husband respecting her behaviour towards him, and thus it soon happened that her intercourse with Jacobi enlivened her own existence.