their clients, often barring the way to extravagance and dissipation,

--men to whom families confided their secrets, and who felt so
responsible for any error in their deeds that they meditated long and

carefully over them. Never during his whole notarial life, had any
client found reason to complain of a bad investment or an ill-placed

mortgage. His own fortune, slowly but honorably acquired, had come to
him as the result of a thirty years' practice and careful economy. He

had established in life fourteen of his clerks. Religious, and
generous in secret, Mathias was found whenever good was to be done

without remuneration. An active member on hospital and other
benevolent committees, he subscribed the largest sums to relieve all

sudden misfortunes and emergencies, as well as to create certain
useful permanent institutions; consequently, neither he nor his wife

kept a carriage. Also his word was felt to be sacred, and his coffers
held as much of the money of others as a bank; and also, we may add,

he went by the name of "Our good Monsieur Mathias," and when he died,
three thousand persons followed him to his grave.

Solonet was the style of young notary who comes in humming a tune,
affects light-heartedness, declares that business is better done with

a laugh than seriously. He is the notary captain of the national
guard, who dislikes to be taken for a notary, solicits the cross of

the Legion of honor, keeps his cabriolet, and leaves the verification
of his deeds to his clerks; he is the notary who goes to balls and

theatres, buys pictures and plays at ecarte; he has coffers in which
gold is received on deposit and is later returned in bank-bills,--a

notary who follows his epoch, risks capital in doubtfulinvestments,
speculates with all he can lay his hands on, and expects to retire

with an income of thirty thousand francs after ten years' practice; in
short, the notary whose cleverness comes of his duplicity, whom many

men fear as an accomplice possessing their secrets, and who sees in
his practice a means of ultimately marrying some blue-stockinged

heiress.
When the slender, fair-haired Solonet, curled, perfumed, and booted

like the leading gentleman at the Vaudeville, and dressed like a dandy
whose most important business is a duel, entered Madame Evangelista's

salon, preceding his brother notary, whose advance was delayed by a
twinge of the gout, the two men presented to the life one of those

famous caricatures entitled "Former Times and the Present Day," which
had such eminent success under the Empire. If Madame and Mademoiselle

Evangelista to whom the "good Monsieur Mathias," was personally
unknown, felt, on first seeing him, a slight inclination to laugh,

they were soon touched by the old-fashioned grace with which he
greeted them. The words he used were full of that amenity which

amiable old men convey as much by the ideas they suggest as by the
manner in which they express them. The younger notary, with his

flippant tone, seemed on a lower plane. Mathias showed his superior
knowledge of life by the reserved manner with which he accosted Paul.

Without compromising his white hairs, he showed that he respected the
young man's nobility, while at the same time he claimed the honor due

to old age, and made it felt that social rights are natural. Solonet's
bow and greeting, on the contrary, expressed a sense of perfect

equality, which would naturally affront the pretensions of a man of
society and make the notary ridiculous in the eyes of a real noble.

Solonet made a motion, somewhat too familiar, to Madame Evangelista,
inviting her to a private conference in the recess of a window. For

some minutes they talked to each other in a low voice, giving way now
and then to laughter,--no doubt to lessen in the minds of others the

importance of the conversation, in which Solonet was really
communicating to his sovereign lady the plan of battle.

"But," he said, as he ended, "will you have the courage to sell your
house?"

"Undoubtedly," she replied.
Madame Evangelista did not choose to tell her notary the motive of

this heroism, which struck him greatly. Solonet's zeal might have
cooled had he known that his client was really intending to leave

Bordeaux. She had not as yet said anything about that intention to
Paul, in order not to alarm him with the preliminary steps and

circumlocutions which must be taken before he entered on the political
life she planned for him.

After dinner the two plenipotentiaries left the loving pair with the
mother, and betook themselves to an adjoining salon where their

conference was arranged to take place. A dual scene then followed on
this domestic stage: in the chimney-corner of the great salon a scene

of love, in which to all appearances life was smiles and joy; in the
other room, a scene of gravity and gloom, where selfish interests,

baldly proclaimed, openly took the part they play in life under
flowery disguises.

"My dear master," said Solonet, "the document can remain under your
lock and key; I know very well what I owe to my old preceptor."

Mathias bowed gravely. "But," continued Solonet, unfolding the rough
copy of a deed he had made his clerk draw up, "as we are the oppressed

party, I mean the daughter, I have written the contract--which will
save you trouble. We marry with our rights under the rule of community

of interests; with general donation of our property to each other in
case of death without heirs; if not, donation of one-fourth as life

interest, and one-fourth in fee; the sum placed in community of
interests to be one-fourth of the respective property of each party;

the survivor to possess the furniture without appraisal. It's all as
simple as how d'ye do."

"Ta, ta, ta, ta," said Mathias, "I don't do business as one sings a
tune. What are your claims?"

"What are yours?" said Solonet.
"Our property," replied Mathias, "is: the estate of Lanstrac, which

brings in a rental of twenty-three thousand francs a year, not
counting the natural products. Item: the farms of Grassol and Guadet,

each worth three thousand six hundred francs a year. Item: the
vineyard of Belle-Rose, yielding in ordinary years sixteen thousand

francs; total, forty-six thousand two hundred francs a year. Item: the
patrimonial mansion at Bordeaux taxed for nine hundred francs. Item: a

handsome house, between court and garden in Paris, rue de la
Pepiniere, taxed for fifteen hundred francs. These pieces of property,

the title-deeds of which I hold, are derived from our father and
mother, except the house in Paris, which we bought ourselves. We must

also reckon in the furniture of the two houses, and that of the
chateau of Lanstrac, estimated at four hundred and fifty thousand

francs. There's the table, the cloth, and the first course. What do
you bring for the second course and the dessert?"

"Our rights," replied Solonet.
"Specify them, my friend," said Mathias. "What do you bring us? Where

is the inventory of the property left by Monsieur Evangelista? Show me
the liquidation, the investment of the amount. Where is your capital?

--if there is any capital. Where is your landed property?--if you have
any. In short, let us see your guardianship account, and tell us what

you bring and what your mother will secure to us."
"Does Monsieur le Comte de Manerville love Mademoiselle Evangelista?"

"He wishes to make her his wife if the marriage can be suitably
arranged," said the old notary. "I am not a child; this matter

concerns our business, and not our feelings."
"The marriage will be off unless you show generous feeling; and for

this reason," continued Solonet. "No inventory was made at the death
of our husband; we are Spaniards, Creoles, and know nothing of French

laws. Besides, we were too deeply grieved at our loss to think at such
a time of the miserable formalities which occupy cold hearts. It is

publicly well known that our late husband adored us, and that we
mourned for him sincerely. If we did have a settlement of accounts

with a short inventory attached, made, as one may say, by common
report, you can thank our surrogate guardian, who obliged us to

establish a status and assign to our daughter a fortune, such as it
is, at a time when we were forced to withdraw from London our English