the Court of Claims. Had Mademoiselle Mignon no more than ten thousand

francs, if I had even to make a settlement on her, she should still be
my wife; and to make her happy as you, monsieur, have made your wife

happy, to be to you a real son (for I have no father), are the deepest
desires of my heart."

Charles Mignon stepped back three paces and fixed upon La Briere a
look which entered the eyes of the young man as a dagger enters its

sheath; he stood silent a moment, recognizing the absolute candor, the
pure truthfulness of that open nature in the light of the young man's

inspired eyes. "Is fate at last weary of pursuing me?" he asked
himself. "Am I to find in this young man the pearl of sons-in-law?" He

walked up and down the room in strong agitation.
"Monsieur," he said at last, "you are bound to submitwholly to the

judgment which you have come here to seek, otherwise you are now
playing a farce."

"Oh, monsieur!"
"Listen to me," said the father, nailing La Briere where he stood with

a glance. "I shall be neither harsh, nor hard, nor unjust. You shall
have the advantages and the disadvantages of the false position in

which you have placed yourself. My daughter believes that she loves
one of the great poets of the day, whose fame is really that which has

attracted her. Well, I, her father, intend to give her the opportunity
to choose between the celebrity which has been a beacon to her, and

the poor reality which the irony of fate has flung at her feet. Ought
she not to choose between Canalis and yourself? I rely upon your honor

not to repeat what I have told you as to the state of my affairs. You
may each come, I mean you and your friend the Baron de Canalis, to

Havre for the last two weeks of October. My house will be open to both
of you, and my daughter must have an opportunity to study you. You

must yourself bring your rival, and not disabuse him as to the foolish
tales he will hear about the wealth of the Comte de La Bastie. I go to

Havre to-morrow, and I shall expect you three days later. Adieu,
monsieur."

Poor La Briere went back to Canalis with a dragging step. The poet,
meantime, left to himself, had given way to a current of thought out

of which had come that secondaryimpulse which Monsieur de Talleyrand
valued so much. The first impulse is the voice of nature, the second

that of society.
"A girl worth six millions," he thought to himself, "and my eyes were

not able to see that gold shining in the darkness! With such a fortune
I could be peer of France, count, marquis, ambassador. I've replied to

middle-class women and silly women, and crafty creatures who wanted
autographs; I've tired myself to death with masked-ball intrigues,--at

the very moment when God was sending me a soul of price, an angel with
golden wings! Bah! I'll make a poem on it, and perhaps the chance will

come again. Heavens! the luck of that little La Briere,--strutting
about in my lustre--plagiarism! I'm the cast and he's to be the

statue, is he? It is the old fable of Bertrand and Raton. Six
millions, a beauty, a Mignon de La Bastie, an aristocratic divinity

loving poetry and the poet! And I, who showed my muscle as man of the
world, who did those Alcide exercises to silence by moral force the

champion of physical force, that old soldier with a heart, that friend
of this very young girl, whom he'll now go and tell that I have a

heart of iron!--I, to play Napoleon when I ought to have been
seraphic! Good heavens! True, I shall have my friend. Friendship is a

beautiful thing. I have kept him, but at what a price! Six millions,
that's the cost of it; we can't have many friends if we pay all that

for them."
La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached this point in his

meditations. He was gloom personified.
"Well, what's the matter?" said Canalis.

"The father exacts that his daughter shall choose between the two
Canalis--"

"Poor boy!" cried the poet, laughing, "he's a clever fellow, that
father."

"I have pledged my honor that I will take you to Havre," said La
Briere, piteously.

"My dear fellow," said Canalis, "if it is a question of your honor you
may count on me. I'll ask for leave of absence for a month."

"Modeste is so beautiful!" exclaimed La Briere, in a despairing tone.
"You will crush me out of sight. I wondered all along that fate should

be so kind to me; I knew it was all a mistake."
"Bah! we will see about that," said Canalis with inhuman gaiety.

That evening, after dinner, Charles Mignon and Dumay, were flying, by
virtue of three francs to each postilion, from Paris to Havre. The

father had eased the watch-dog's mind as to Modeste and her love
affairs; the guard was relieved, and Butscha's innocence established.

"It is all for the best, my old Dumay," said the count, who had been
making certain inquiries of Mongenod respecting Canalis and La Briere.

"We are going to have two actors for one part!" he cried gaily.
Nevertheless, he requested his old comrade to be absolutely silent

about the comedy which was now to be played at the Chalet,--a comedy
it might be, but also a gentle punishment, or, if you prefer it, a

lesson given by the father to the daughter.
The two friends kept up a long conversation all the way from Paris to

Havre, which put the colonel in possession of the facts relating to
his family during the past four years, and informing Dumay that

Desplein, the great surgeon, was coming to Havre at the end of the
present month to examine the cataract on Madame Mignon's eyes, and

decide if it were possible to restore her sight.
A few moments before the breakfast-hour at the Chalet, the clacking of

a postilion's whip apprised the family that the two soldiers were
arriving; only a father's joy at returning after long absence could be

heralded with such clatter, and it brought all the women to the garden
gate. There is many a father and many a child--perhaps more fathers

than children--who will understand the delights of such an arrival,
and that happy fact shows that literature has no need to depict it.

Perhaps all gentle and tender emotions are beyond the range of
literature.

Not a word that could trouble the peace of the family was uttered on
this joyful day. Truce was tacitly established between father, mother,

and child as to the so-calledmysterious love which had paled
Modeste's cheeks,--for this was the first day she had left her bed

since Dumay's departure for Paris. The colonel, with the charming
delicacy of a true soldier, never left his wife's side nor released

her hand; but he watched Modeste with delight, and was never weary of
noting her refined, elegant, and poetic beauty. Is it not by such

seeming trifles that we recognize a man of feeling? Modeste, who
feared to interrupt the subdued joy of the husband and wife kept at a

little distance, coming from time to time to kiss her father's
forehead, and when she kissed it overmuch she seemed to mean that she

was kissing it for two,--for Bettina and herself.
"Oh, my darling, I understand you," said the colonel, pressing her

hand as she assailed him with kisses.
"Hush!" whispered the young girl, glancing at her mother.

Dumay's rather sly and pregnant silence made Modeste somewhat uneasy
as to the upshot of his journey to Paris. She looked at him furtively

every now and then, without being able to get beneath his epidermis.
The colonel, like a prudent father, wanted to study the character of

his only daughter, and above all consult his wife, before entering on
a conference upon which the happiness of the whole family depended.

"To-morrow, my precious child," he said as they parted for the night,
"get up early, and we will go and take a walk on the seashore. We have

to talk about your poems, Mademoiselle de La Bastie."
His last words, accompanied by a smile, which reappeared like an echo

on Dumay's lips, were all that gave Modeste any clew to what was
coming; but it was enough to calm her uneasiness and keep her awake

far into the night with her head full of suppositions; this, however,
did not prevent her from being dressed and ready in the morning long