, intending to win him over to their interests.
Mademoiselle d'Herouville, to whom we shall in future confine the family
name, to distinguish her from her niece Helene, was giving the notary to
understand that the post of judge of the Supreme Court in Havre, which
Charles X. would bestow as she desired, was an office worthy of his
legal talent and his well-known probity. Butscha, meanwhile, who had
been walking about with La Briere, was greatly alarmed at the progress
Canalis was evidently making, and he waylaid Modeste at the lower step
of the portico when the whole party returned to the house to endure the
torments of their inevitable whist.

"Mademoiselle," he said, in a low whisper, "I do hope you don't call him
Melchior."

"I'm very near it, my Black Dwarf," she said, with a smile that might
have made an angel swear.

"Good God!" exclaimed Butscha, letting fall his hands, which struck the
marble steps.

"Well! and isn't he worth more than that spiteful and gloomy secretary
in whom you take such an interest?" she retorted, assuming, at the mere
thought of Ernest, the haughty manner whose secret belongs exclusively
to young girls,--as if their virginity lent them wings to fly to heaven.
"Pray, would your little La Briere accept me without a fortune?" she
said, after a pause.

"Ask your father," replied Butscha, who walked a few steps from the
house, to get Modeste at a safe distance from the windows. "Listen to
me, mademoiselle. You know that he who speaks to you is ready to give
not only his life but his honor for you, at any moment, and at all
times. Therefore you may believe in him; you can confide to him that
which you may not, perhaps, be willing to say to your father. Tell me,
has that sublime Canalis been making you the disinterested offer that
you now fling as a reproach at poor Ernest?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe it?"

"That question, my manikin," she replied, giving him one of the ten or
a dozen nicknames she had invented for him, "strikes me as undervaluing
the strength of my self-love."

"Ah, you are laughing, my dear Mademoiselle Modeste; then there's no
danger: I hope you are only making a fool of him."

"Pray what would you think of me, Monsieur Butscha, if I allowed myself
to make fun of those who do me the honor to wish to marry me? You ought
to know, master Jean, that even if a girl affects to despise the most
despicable attentions, she is flattered by them."

"Then I flatter you?" said