She had in the play of her countenance, in her step, in her gestures, the sovereign ease of a woman who does not feel a single weak point in her beauty, and who moves, grows, and blossoms with all the freedom of a child in his cradle or a fallow deer in the forest.

Made as she was, she had no difficulty in dressing well; the simplest costumes fitted her person with an elegant precision that caused the Baroness de Pers to say in her inaccurate though expressive language: "A pair of kid gloves would be enough to dress her with." During that same day and those that followed, Julia conquered new titles to Monsieur de Lucan's good graces, by manifesting a strong liking for the chateau of Vastville and the surrounding sites.

The chateau pleased her for its romantic style, its old-fashioned garden ornamented with yews and evergreens, the lonely avenues of the park, and its melancholy woods scattered with ruins.

She went into ecstasies at the sight of the vast heather plains lashed by the ocean winds, the trees with twisted and convulsive tops, the tall granite cliffs worn by the everlasting waves.
"All that," she said, laughingly, "has a great deal of character;" and as she had a great deal of it herself, she felt in her element.

She had found the home of her dreams, she was happy.
Her mother, to whom she paid up in passionate effusions all arrearages of tenderness, was still more so.
The greater part of the day was spent riding about on horseback.