the girl, whose beauty was enhanced by the blush which the pleasure of
this answer brought to her face.

"Mamma, how can I acknowledge so much generosity."
"My dear child, you have a lifetime before you in which to return it.

To make the daily happiness of a home, is to bring a treasure into it.
I had no other fortune when I married."

"Do you like Lanstrac?" asked Paul, addressing Natalie.
"How could I fail to like the place where you were born?" she

answered. "I wish I could see your house."
"OUR house," said Paul. "Do you not want to know if I shall understand

your tastes and arrange the house to suit you? Your mother had made a
husband's task most difficult; you have always been so happy! But

where love is infinite, nothing is impossible."
"My dear children," said Madame Evangelista, "do you feel willing to

stay in Bordeaux after your marriage? If you have the courage to face
the people here who know you and will watch and hamper you, so be it!

But if you feel that desire for a solitude together which can hardly
be expressed, let us go to Paris were the life of a young couple can

pass unnoticed in the stream. There alone you can behave as lovers
without fearing to seem ridiculous."

"You are quite right," said Paul, "but I shall hardly have time to get
my house ready. However, I will write to-night to de Marsay, the

friend on whom I can always count to get things done for me."
At the moment when Paul, like all young men accustomed to satisfy

their desires without previouscalculation, was inconsiderately
binding himself to the expenses of a stay in Paris, Maitre Mathias

entered the salon and made a sign to his client that he wished to
speak to him.

"What is it, my friend?" asked Paul, following the old man to the
recess of a window.

"Monsieur le comte," said the honest lawyer, "there is not a penny of
dowry. My advice is: put off the conference to another day, so that

you may gain time to consider your proper course."
"Monsieur Paul," said Natalie, "I have a word to say in private to

you."
Though Madame Evangelista's face was calm, no Jew of the middle ages

ever suffered greater torture in his caldron of boiling oil than she
was enduring in her violetvelvet gown. Solonet had pledged the

marriage to her, but she was ignorant of the means and conditions of
success. The anguish of this certainty" target="_blank" title="n.不可靠；不确定的事">uncertainty was intolerable. Possibly she

owed her safety to her daughter's disobedience. Natalie had considered
the advice of her mother and noted her anxiety. When she saw the

success of her own coquetry she was struck to the heart with a variety
of contradictory thoughts. Without blaming her mother, she was half-

ashamed of manoeuvres the object of which was, undoubtedly, some
personal game. She was also seized with a jealouscuriosity which is

easily conceived. She wanted to find out if Paul loved her well enough
to rise above the obstacles that her mother foresaw and which she now

saw clouding the face of the old lawyer. These ideas and sentiments
prompted her to an action of loyalty which became her well. But, for

all that, the blackest perfidy could not have been as dangerous as her
present innocence.

"Paul," she said in a low voice, and she so called him for the first
time, "if any difficulties as to property arise to separate us,

remember that I free you from all engagements, and will allow you to
let the blame of such a rupture rest on me."

She put such dignity into this expression of her generosity that Paul
believed in her disinterestedness and in her ignorance of the strange

fact that his notary had just told to him. He pressed the young girl's
hand and kissed it like a man to whom love is more precious than

wealth. Natalie left the room.
"Sac-a-papier! Monsieur le comte, you are committing a great folly,"

said the old notary, rejoining his client.
Paul grew thoughtful. He had expected to unite Natalie's fortune with

his own and thus obtain for his married life an income of one hundred
thousand francs a year; and however much a man may be in love he

cannot pass without emotion and anxiety from the prospect of a hundred
thousand to the certainty of forty-six thousand a year and the duty of

providing for a woman accustomed to every luxury.
"My daughter is no longer here," said Madame Evangelista, advancing

almost regally toward her son-in-law and his notary. "May I be told
what is happening?"

"Madame," replied Mathias, alarmed at Paul's silence, "an obstacle
which I fear will delay us has arisen--"

At these words, Maitre Solonet issued from the little salon and cut
short the old man's speech by a remark which restored Paul's

composure. Overcome by the remembrance of his gallant speeches and his
lover-like behavior, he felt unable to disown them or to change his

course. He longed, for the moment, to fling himself into a gulf;
Solonet's words relieved him.

"There is a way," said the younger notary, with an easy air, "by which
madame can meet the payment which is due to her daughter. Madame

Evangelista possesses forty thousand francs a year from an investment
in the Five-per-cents, the capital of which will soon be at par, if

not above it. We may thereforereckon it at eight hundred thousand
francs. This house and garden are fully worth two hundred thousand. On

that estimate, Madame can convey by the marriage contract the titles
of that property to her daughter, reserving only a life interest in it

--for I conclude that Monsieur le comte could hardly wish to leave his
mother-in-law without means? Though Madame has certainly run through

her fortune, she is still able to make good that of her daughter, or
very nearly so."

"Women are most unfortunate in having no knowledge of business," said
Madame Evangelista. "Have I titles to property? and what are life-

interests?"
Paul was in a sort of ecstasy as he listened to this proposed

arrangement. The old notary, seeing the trap, and his client with one
foot caught in it, was petrified for a moment, as he said to

himself:--
"I am certain they are tricking us."

"If madame will follow my advice," said Solonet, "she will secure her
own tranquillity. By sacrificing herself in this way she may be sure

that no minors will ultimatelyharass her--for we never know who may
live and who may die! Monsieur le comte will then give due

acknowledgment in the marriage contract of having received the sum
total of Mademoiselle Evangelista's patrimonial inheritance."

Mathias could not restrain the indignation which shone in his eyes and
flushed his face.

"And that sum," he said, shaking, "is--"
"One million, one hundred and fifty-six thousand francs according to

the document--"
"Why don't you ask Monsieur le comte to make over 'hic et nunc' his

whole fortune to his future wife?" said Mathias. "It would be more
honest than what you now propose. I will not allow the ruin of the

Comte de Manerville to take place under my very eyes--"
He made a step as if to address his client, who was silent throughout

this scene as if dazed by it; but he turned and said, addressing
Madame Evangelista:--

"Do not suppose, madame, that I think you a party to these ideas of my
brother notary. I consider you an honest woman and a lady who knows

nothing of business."
"Thank you, brother notary," said Solonet.

"You know that there can be no offence between you and me," replied
Mathias. "Madame," he added, "you ought to know the result of this

proposed arrangement. You are still young and beautiful enough to
marry again--Ah! madame," said the old man, noting her gesture, "who

can answer for themselves on that point?"
"I did not suppose, monsieur," said Madame Evangelista, "that, after

remaining a widow for the seven best years of my life, and refusing