of Arcis, brother-in-law of Grevin,
and a few other liberals.

"If our dear boy is not nominated," said Madame Marion, having first
looked into the antechamber and garden to make sure that no one
overheard her, "he cannot have Mademoiselle Beauvisage; his success in
this election means a marriage with Cecile."

"Cecile!" exclaimed the old man, opening his eyes very wide and looking
at his sister in stupefaction.

"There is no one but you in the whole department who would forget the
_dot_ and the expectations of Mademoiselle Beauvisage," said his sister.

"She is the richest heiress in the department of the Aube," said Simon
Giguet.

"But it seems to me," said the old soldier, "that my son is not to be
despised as a match; he is your heir, he already has something from his
mother, and I expect to leave him something better than a dry name."

"All that put together won't make thirty thousand a year, and suitors
are already coming forward who have as much as that, not counting their
position," returned Madame Marion.

"And?" asked the colonel.

"They have been refused."

"Then what do the Beauvisage family want?" said the colonel, looking
alternately at his son and sister.

It may seem extraordinary that Colonel Giguet, the brother of Madame
Marion in whose house the society of Arcis had met for twenty-four
years, and whose salon was the echo of all reports, all scandals, and
all the gossip of the department of the Aube,--a good deal of it being
there manufactured,--should be ignorant of facts of this nature. But his
ignorance will seem natural when we mention that this noble relic of the
Napoleonic legions went to bed at night and rose in the morning with the
chickens, as all old persons should do if they wish to live out their
lives. He was never present at the intimate conversations which went
on in the salon. In the provinces there are two sorts of intimate
conversation,--one, which is held officially when all the company are
gathered together, playing at cards or conversing; the other, which
_simmers_, like a well made soup, when three or four friends remain
around the fireplace, friends who can be trusted to repeat nothing of
what is said beyond their own limits.

For nine years, ever since the triumph of his political ideas, the
colonel had lived almost entirely outside of social life. Rising with
the sun, he devoted himself to horticulture; he adored flowers, and of
all flowers he best loved roses. Hi