ep
further backward. It was not worth while your coming out of your way to
tell me this, and you may return as soon as you please.'"

"You surprise me. There must be some way of getting at him, if he is
really good-hearted, as you say. If I could see your uncle I should soon
find out a way."

"If you could see him! Yes, that would be the best way of all; it
couldn't help succeeding. He imagines you as a flighty Parisienne; he is
afraid of you; he is more angry with me for loving you than for refusing
to carry on his practice. If he could only see you, he would soon
forgive me."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it."

"Do you think that if I were to look him in the face, as I now look at
you, and to say to him: 'Monsieur Mouillard, will you not consent to my
becoming your niece?' do you think that then he would give in?"

"Alas! Mademoiselle, why can not it be tried?"

"It certainly is difficult, but I won't say it can not."

We explained, or rather Jeanne explained, the case to M. Charnot, who is
assuredly her earliest and most complete conquest. At first he cried out
against the idea. He said it was entirely my business, a family matter
in which he had no right to interfere. She insisted. She carried his
scruples by storm. She boldly proposed a trip to Bourges, and a visit to
M. Mouillard. She overflowed with reasons, some of them rather weak, but
all so prettily urged! A trip to Bourges would be delightful--something
so novel and refreshing! Had M. Charnot complained on the previous
evening, or had he not, of having to stop in Paris in the heat of
August? Yes, he had complained, and quite right too, for his colleagues
did not hesitate to leave their work and rush off to the country. Then
she cited examples: one off to the Vosges, another at Arcachon, yet
another at Deauville. And she reminded him, too, that a certain old
lady, one of his old friends of the Faubourg St. Germain, lived only a
few miles out of Bourges, and had invited him to come and see her, she
didn't know how many times, and that he had promised and promised and
never kept his word. Now he could take the opportunity of going on from
Bourges to her chateau. Finally, as M. Charnot continued to urge the
singularity of such behavior, she replied:

"My dear father! not at all; in visiting Monsieur Mouillard you will be
only fulfilling a social duty."

"How so, I should like to know?"

"He paid you a visit, and you will be returning it!"

M. Ch