"Who may she be? What kind of victual does she eat?"
"She is the daughter of the late M. Chardon, the druggist in

L'Houmeau."
"You are going to marry a girl out of L'Houmeau! YOU! a burgess of

Angouleme, and printer to His Majesty! This is what comes of book-
learning! Send a boy to school, forsooth! Oh! well, then she is very

rich, is she, my boy?" and the old vinegrower came up closer with a
cajoling manner; "if you are marrying a girl out of L'Houmeau, it must

be because she has lots of cash, eh? Good! you will pay me my rent
now. There are two years and one-quarter owing, you know, my boy; that

is two thousand seven hundred francs altogether; the money will come
just in the nick of time to pay the cooper. If it was anybody else, I

should have a right to ask for interest; for, after all, business is
business, but I will let you off the interest. Well, how much has

she?"
"Just as much as my mother had."

The old vinegrower very nearly said, "Then she has only ten thousand
francs!" but he recollected just in time that he had declined to give

an account of her fortune to her son, and exclaimed, "She has
nothing!"

"My mother's fortune was her beauty and intelligence," said David.
"You just go into the market and see what you can get for it! Bless my

buttons! what bad luck parents have with their children. David, when I
married, I had a paper cap on my head for my whole fortune, and a pair

of arms; I was a poor pressman; but with the fine printing-house that
I gave you, with your industry, and your education, you might marry a

burgess' daughter, a woman with thirty or forty thousand francs. Give
up your fancy, and I will find you a wife myself. There is some one

about three miles away, a miller's widow, thirty-two years old, with a
hundred thousand francs in land. There is your chance! You can add her

property to Marsac, for they touch. Ah! what a fine property we should
have, and how I would look after it! They say she is going to marry

her foreman Courtois, but you are the better man of the two. I would
look after the mill, and she should live like a lady up in Angouleme."

"I am engaged, father."
"David, you know nothing of business; you will ruin yourself, I see.

Yes, if you marry this girl out of L'Houmeau, I shall square accounts
and summons you for the rent, for I see that no good will come of

this. Oh! my presses, my poor presses! it took some money to grease
you and keep you going. Nothing but a good year can comfort me after

this."
"It seems to me, father, that until now I have given you very little

trouble----"
"And paid mighty little rent," put in his parent.

"I came to ask you something else besides. Will you build a second
floor to your house, and some rooms above the shed?"

"Deuce a bit of it; I have not the cash, and that you know right well.
Besides, it would be money thrown clean away, for what would it bring

in? Oh! you get up early of a morning to come and ask me to build you
a place that would ruin a king, do you? Your name may be David, but I

have not got Solomon's treasury. Why, you are mad! or they changed my
child at nurse. There is one for you that will have grapes on it," he

said, interrupting himself to point out a shoot. "Offspring of this
sort don't disappoint their parents; you dung the vines, and they

repay you for it. I sent you to school; I spent any amount of money to
make a scholar of you; I sent you to the Didots to learn your

business; and all this fancy education ends in a daughter-in-law out
of L'Houmeau without a penny to her name. If you had not studied

books, if I had kept you under my eye, you would have done as I
pleased, and you would be marrying a miller's widow this day with a

hundred thousand francs in hand, to say nothing of the mill. Oh! your
cleverness leads you to imagine that I am going to reward this fine

sentiment by building palaces for you, does it? . . . Really, anybody
might think that the house that has been a house these two hundred

years was nothing but a pigsty, not fit for the girl out of L'Houmeau
to sleep in! What next! She is the Queen of France, I suppose."

"Very well, father, I will build the second floor myself; the son will
improve his father's property. It is not the usual way, but it happens

so sometimes."
"What, my lad! you can find money for building, can you, though you

can't find money to pay the rent, eh! You sly dog, to come round your
father."

The question thus raised was hard to lay, for the old man was only too
delighted to seize an opportunity of posing as a good father without

disbursing a penny; and all that David could obtain was his bare
consent to the marriage and free leave to do what he liked in the

house--at his own expense; the old "bear," that pattern of a thrifty
parent, kindly consenting not to demand the rent and drain the savings

to which David imprudently owned. David went back again in low
spirits. He saw that he could not reckon on his father's help in

misfortune.
In Angouleme that day people talked of nothing but the Bishop's

epigram and Mme. de Bargeton's reply. Every least thing that happened
that evening was so much exaggerated and embellished and twisted out

of all knowledge, that the poet became the hero of the hour. While
this storm in a teacup raged on high, a few drops fell among the

bourgeoisie; young men looked enviously after Lucien as he passed on
his way through Beaulieu, and he overheard chance phrases that filled

him with conceit.
"There is a lucky young fellow!" said an attorney's clerk, named

Petit-Claud, a plain-featured youth who had been at school with
Lucien, and treated him with small, patronizing airs.

"Yes, he certainly is," answered one of the young men who had been
present on the occasion of the reading; "he is a good-looking fellow,

he has some brains, and Mme. de Bargeton is quite wild about him."
Lucien had waited impatiently until he could be sure of finding Louise

alone. He had to break the tidings of his sister's marriage to the
arbitress of his destinies. Perhaps after yesterday's soiree, Louise

would be kinder than usual, and her kindness might lead to a moment of
happiness. So he thought, and he was not mistaken; Mme. de Bargeton

met him with a vehemence of sentiment that seemed like a touching
progress of passion to the novice in love. She abandoned her hands,

her beautiful golden hair, to the burning kisses of the poet who had
passed through such an ordeal.

"If only you could have seen your face whilst you were reading," cried
Louise, using the familiar tu, the caress of speech, since yesterday,

while her white hands wiped the pearls of sweat from the brows on
which she set a poet's crown. "There were sparks of fire in those

beautiful eyes! From your lips, as I watched them, there fell the
golden chains that suspend the hearts of men upon the poet's mouth.

You shall read Chenier through to me from beginning to end; he is the
lover's poet. You shall not be unhappy any longer; I will not have it.

Yes, dear angel, I will make an oasis for you, there you shall live
your poet's life, sometimes busy, sometimes languid; indolent, full of

work, and musing by turns; but never forget that you owe your laurels
to me, let that thought be my noble guerdon for the sufferings which I

must endure. Poor love! the world will not spare me any more than it
has spared you; the world is avenged on all happiness in which it has

no share. Yes, I shall always be a mark for envy--did you not see that
last night? The bloodthirsty insects are quick enough to drain every

wound that they pierce. But I was happy; I lived. It is so long since
all my heartstrings vibrated."

The tears flowed fast, and for all answer Lucien took Louise's hand
and gave it a lingering kiss. Every one about him soothed and caressed