"Nearly seventy."

"My poor sweetheart! I do pity you. But after this painful duty is over
you must sup here and sleep with me."

"Certainly."

On the day appointed I had a long and friendly interview with the father
of my late niece. I told him all about his daughter, only suppressing the
history of our own amours, which were not suitable for a father's ears.
The worthy man embraced me again and again, calling me his benefactor,
and saying that I had done more for his daughter than he would have done
himself, which in a sense was perhaps true. He told me that he had
received another letter from the father, and a letter from the young man
himself, who wrote in the most tender and respectful manner possible.

"He doesn't ask anything about the dower," said he, "a wonderful thing
these days, but I will give her a hundred and fifty thousand francs, for
the marriage is an excellent one, above all after my poor simpleton's
escape. All Marseilles knows the father of her future husband, and
to-morrow I mean to tell the whole story to my wife, and I am sure she
will forgive the poor girl as I have done."

I had to promise to be present at the wedding, which was to be at Madame
Audibert's. That lady knowing me to be very fond of play, and there being
a good deal of play going on at her house, wondered why she did not see
more of me; but I was at Marseilles to create and not to destroy: there
is a time for everything.

I had a green velvet jacket made for Marcoline, with breeches of the same
and silver-lace garters, green silk stockings, and fine leather shoes of
the same colour. Her fine black hair was confined in a net of green silk,
with a silver brooch. In this dress the voluptuous and well-rounded form
of Marcoline was displayed to so much advantage, that if she had shewn
herself in the street all Marseilles would have run after her, for, in
spite of her man's dress, anybody could see that she was a girl. I took
her to my rooms in her ordinary costume, to shew her where she would have
to hide after the operation was over.

By Saturday we had finished all the consecrations, and the oracle fixed
the regeneration of Semiramis for the following Tuesday, in the hours of
the sun, Venus, and Mercury, which follow each other in the planetary
system of the magicians, as also in Ptolemy's. These hours were in
ordinary parlance the ninth, tenth, and eleventh of the day, since the
day being a Tuesday, the first hour was sacred