y, to
announce his return.

"I entreat you," murmured Clotilde hurriedly, "to say nothing to master.
He does not know my decision, and I wish to break it to him myself, for
he was bent upon this marriage."

Pascal stood still in the doorway. He was trembling and breathless, as
if he had come upstairs too quickly. He still found strength to smile at
them, saying:

"Well, children, have you come to an understanding?"

"Yes, undoubtedly," responded Ramond, as agitated as himself.

"Then it is all settled?"

"Quite," said Clotilde, who had been seized by a faintness.

Pascal walked over to his work-table, supporting himself by the
furniture, and dropped into the chair beside it.

"Ah, ah! you see the legs are not so strong after all. It is this old
carcass of a body. But the heart is strong. And I am very happy, my
children, your happiness will make me well again."

But when Ramond, after a few minutes' further conversation, had gone
away, he seemed troubled at finding himself alone with the young girl,
and he again asked her:

"It is settled, quite settled; you swear it to me?"

"Entirely settled."

After this he did not speak again. He nodded his head, as if to repeat
that he was delighted; that nothing could be better; that at last they
were all going to live in peace. He closed his eyes, feigning to
drop asleep, as he sometimes did in the afternoon. But his heart beat
violently, and his closely shut eyelids held back the tears.

That evening, at about ten o'clock, when Clotilde went downstairs for a
moment to give an order to Martine before she should have gone to bed,
Pascal profited by the opportunity of being left alone, to go and lay
the little box containing the lace corsage on the young girl's bed. She
came upstairs again, wished him the accustomed good-night, and he had
been for at least twenty minutes in his own room, and was already in his
shirt sleeves, when a burst of gaiety sounded outside his door. A little
hand tapped, and a fresh voice cried, laughing:

"Come, come and look!"

He opened the door, unable to resist this appeal of youth, conquered by
his joy.

"Oh, come, come and see what a beautiful little bird has put on my bed!"

And she drew him to her room, taking no refusal. She had lighted the two
candles in it, and the antique, pleasant chamber, with its hangings of
faded rose color, seemed transformed into a chapel; and on the bed, like
a sacred cloth offered to the adoration o