evidence of unfailing good sense; who crush us with their superiority. With Gontran I am easy, quite easy. It isn't he who would crush me with his superiority. I do not know much, Aunt Louise, but my ignorance beside his is learning. He had great trouble in getting his baccalaureate. He flunked three times."

"Flunked!" exclaimed Aunt Louise.

"It means failed. He taught me the word. All the queer words I use, Aunt Louise, were taught me by him."

"Come, now—"

"Yes, all. I can see him now, coming to the house one day, and I can hear him say, 'Flunked again!' That was the third time. Then he went and took his examination in the country at a little college at Douai; it was easier, and he passed at last. M. de Courtalin has never been flunked; he is everything that one can be at his age: bachelor, advocate, lawyer, and grave, exact, and severe in his language, and dressed—always in a black frock-coat, with two rows of buttons, always all buttoned—in short, a man of the past. And what a future before him! Already a member of the General Council, and very eloquent, very influential, he will be deputy in three years, and then, when we have a government that people of our class can recognize, minister, ambassador, and I know not what! The highest offices wait for him, and all his ambitions will be legitimate when he has a chance to put his superior talents at the service of the monarchy. That's one of mamma's phrases. Whereas you, my poor Gontran—you will never be anything other than a very funny and very nice old dear, whom I shall lead as I like with my little finger."

"Oh! oh!"

"You will see. Besides, you have seen for eight days."

"The first eight days don't count."

"I will continue, rest assured. I love you, besides. I love you, and do you know why? It is because you are not a man of the past; you are distinctly modern, very modern. Look at him, Aunt Louise. Isn't he very nice, very well turned out, very modern, in fact—I repeat it—in his little pearl-gray suit. He is devoted to his clothes. He consults for hours and hours with his tailor, which delights me, for I intend to consult for hours and hours with my dress-maker. And he will pay the bills without a tremor, for he will be charmed to see me very stylish and very much admired. Ah, we shall make the most brilliant and most giddy little couple! He is modern, I shall be modern, we shall be modern! After three, four, or five weeks (we do not know exactly) dedicated to pure love, we shall take flight towards the country, where one has a good time; and then we shall be talked about, Aunt Louise, we shall be talked about. And now, where was I in my story? I am sure I do not know at all."

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"Ah, I know. Mme. de Courtalin had come to ask my hand for her honorable son, and when mamma had spoken to me of that I had exclaimed, 'Sooner the convent!' I do not know exactly what mamma said to Mme. de Courtalin—at any rate, I was left alone for the time being. There was a rush to the Grand Prix, and then a general breaking-up. We went to spend a month at Aix-les-Bains for papa's complaint, and then a fortnight here, Aunt Louise; and then, do you remember, you received the confessions of my poor torn heart. Ah! I must say you are the only young member of the family—you were the only one who did not make a long face when I spoke of my love for that rogue. Mamma, however, had preached to you, and you vaunted the advantages of an alliance with Courtalin, but without conviction. I felt that you were at bottom on my side against mamma, and it was so easily explained—mamma could not understand me, whereas you! They think we little girls know nothing, and we know everything. I knew that mamma had made a worldly marriage, which had, however, turned out very well; and you, Aunt Louise, had married for love. You must have battled to get the husband you wished, and you had him, and you resolutely conquered your happiness. Yes, I knew all that; I dared even to allude to those things of the past, and those memories brought a smile to your lips and tears to your eyes. And to-day again, Aunt Louise, there it is, the smile, and there are the tears."

Marceline interrupted her talk, affectionately threw herself on her Aunt Louise's neck, and kissed her with all her heart. She wiped away the tears with kisses, and only the smile remained. Yes, Aunt Louise remembered that she had had hard work to get as husband a certain handsome officer of the Royal Guard, who was there present at the scene, in an old decorated frame, standing up with his helmet on his head in a martial attitude, leaning on the hilt of his cavalry sabre.

He, too, had been modern, that conqueror of the Trocadero, when he entered Madrid in 1822 on the staff of the Duke of Angoulême. And she, too, old Aunt Louise, had been modern, very modern, the day when, from a window of the Palace of the Tuileries, during a military parade, she had murmured this phrase in her mother's ear: "Mamma, there is the one I love."

"Ah, how cowardly we are!" exclaimed Marceline, abruptly, changing her tone. "Yes, how cowardly we are to love them—those, those dreadful men, who know so little how to care for us. I say that for Gontran. What was he doing while I was telling you my sorrows, Aunt Louise? Quite calmly taking a trip around the world. But let him speak now, let him speak, especially as I cannot any more. In all my life I have never made so long a speech. Speak, sir; why were you going round the world?"

"Because your mother, on the morning of the day before you departed for Aix-les-Bains, had had a very long conversation with me."

"And she had said to you?"

"She had said to me, 'Put a stop to this; marry her or go away, and let her not hear of you again till her marriage.' And as I had for some time been debating whether to take a little trip to Japan, I started for Japan."

"He started for Japan! That goes without saying. You hear him, Aunt Louise; he admits that this time last year he preferred to expatriate himself rather than marry me. So there he was in America, in China, and in Japan. This lasted ten months; from time to time, humbly and timidly, I asked for news of him. He was very well; his last letter was from Shanghai, or Sidney, or Java. For me, not a word, not a remembrance—nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing!"

"I had promised your mother. One day at Yokohama I had bought you a lot of fascinating little things. The box was done up and addressed to you when I remembered my promise. I sent all those Japaneseries to your mother, thinking that you would have your share of the spoil."

"I had nothing at all. The arrival of the box was kept a secret. It would have been necessary to have pronounced your name before me, and mamma didn't wish that. On the other hand, there was always one name on her lips—Courtalin. Still Courtalin, and always Courtalin. He had all qualities, all virtues. Then he had just lost his aunt in Brittany, and he had inherited something. It was thought that he would only have a quarter of the property, and he had had three-quarters. Besides, it was a country-seat, and all around this seat, an admirable domain, sixteen or seventeen hundred hectares. I say it to my shame, Aunt Louise, to my great shame, the thought of giving in came to me; and then, to be absolutely frank, it rather pleased me to become a duchess; so mamma made me out a list of all possible husbands for me, and there was no other duke in the list but M. de Courtalin. There was, of course, the little Count of Limiers, who would be duke some day. But when? His father is forty-five and an athlete, and has an iron constitution. So I was obliged to admit it when I talked it over with mamma in the evening. To be duchess it was necessary to agree on M. de Courtalin. Mamma, however, was perfect, and delightfully gentle. She did not press me, nor treat me harshly, nor torment me; she waited. Only I knew she had said to Mme. de Nelly: 'It will be accomplished, my dear, before the 20th of June. It must be.' Papa