He can still admire youth and beauty, but he knows that with such there can never exist any reciprocity with his own feelings.
The young beauty who would barter her charms for his wealth, would be, he knows, no suitable companion for his fire-side; and to wed some staid dame whose youth has been passed with some dear, kind, first husband--of whom, if not often speaking, she might in all human probability be sometimes thinking--has something too repugnant to his feelings to be thought of.
An elderly maiden with a lap-dog, or a parrot, would be even more insupportable; for how could one who has never had to consult the pleasure or wishes of aught save self be able to study his?
No! it is now too late to think of marriage, and what, therefore, is to be done?
In this emergency, a severe attack of rheumatism confines him to his chamber for many days.

His valet is found out to be clumsy and awkward in assisting him to put on his flannel gloves; the housekeeper, who is called up to receive instructions about some particular broth that he requires, is asked to officiate, and suggests so many little comforts, and evinces so much sympathy for his sufferings, that she is soon installed as nurse.
By administering to his wants, and still more by flattery and obsequiousness, she soon renders herself indispensable to the invalid.
She is proclaimed to be a treasure, and her accounts, which hitherto had been sharply scrutinised and severely censured, are henceforth allowed to pass unblamed, and, consequently, soon amount to double the sum which had formerly, and with reason, been found fault with.

The slightest symptom of illness is magnified into a serious attack by the supposed affectionate and assiduous nurse, until her master, in compliance with her advice, becomes a confirmed hypochondriac, whom she governs despotically under a show of devoted attachment.
She has, by slow but sure degrees, alienated him from all his relatives, and banished from his house the few friends whom she believed possessed any influence over him.

Having rendered herself essential to his comfort, she menaces him continually with the threat of leaving his service; and is only induced to remain by a considerable increase to her salary, though not, as she asserts, by any interested motive.
She lately informed her master, that she was "very sorry--very sorry, indeed--but it was time for her to secure her future comfort; and M.
-- --, the rich grocer, had proposed marriage to her, and offered a good settlement.

It would be a great grief to her to leave so kind a master, especially as she knew no one to whom she could confide the care of him; but a settlement of 4000 francs a-year was not to be refused, and she might never again receive so good an offer." The proposal of the rich grocer, which never existed but in her own fertile brain, is rejected, and her continuance as housekeeper and nurse secured by a settlement of a similar sum made on her by her master; who congratulates himself on having accomplished so advantageous a bargain, while she is laughing with the valet at his credulity.
This same valet, finding her influence to be omnipotent with his master, determines on marrying her secretly, that they may join in plundering the valetudinarian, whose infirmities furnish a perpetual subject for the coarse pleasantries of both these ungrateful menials.
She is now giving him his daily walk on the sunny side of the Luxembourg Gardens.