inexorable judge. Nor might they aspire, like Harriet Martineau, to shield themselves behind the barrier of a lie. When from Augustine's little lips came faltering some childish evasion, the ten-year-old sinner was hurried as an outcast from her home, and sent to expiate her crime with six months' merciful seclusion in a convent. "You have told me a falsehood, mademoiselle," said the marquise, with frigid accuracy; "and you must prepare to leave my house upon the spot."
Faults of breeding were quite as offensive to this grande dame as faults of temper. The fear of her pitiless glance filled her daughters with timidity, and bred in them a mauvaise honte, which in its turn aroused her deadliest ire. Only a week before her wedding-day Madame de Rochefoucauld was sent ignominiously to dine at a side table, as a penance for the awkwardness of her curtsy; while even her fast growing beauty became but a fresh source of misfortune. The dressing of her magnificent hair occupied two long hours every day, and she retained all her life a most distinct and painful recollection of her sufferings at the hands of her coiffeuse.
