is too late to choose
another."

Madeleine was silenced, but Bertha ran on petulantly, this time turning
to Maurice.

"How _can_ you look so happy when Madeleine says she does not mean to
marry you? I never saw anything like you men! One would think you had no
feeling."

Maurice replied: "It is so much happiness to know who possesses
Madeleine's heart, that even if she remain unshaken in her resolution, I
could not be miserable."

"And you will not mind leaving her and going to Brittany? Your plans are
not to be altered?"

"Not unless she will alter them by consenting to accompany me. You know
that my grandmother insists upon returning, and she is inexorable when
she has once made up her mind."

"Like somebody else!" said Bertha, who was decidedly irritated.

Maurice resumed: "And it is my duty not only to protect her, but to
watch over my poor father."

"And you will really, _really_ go?" questioned Bertha, doubtingly.

"I have no alternative."

"Then I am more thankful than ever," she replied, tartly, "that when my
aunt wished to make a match between us, I never thought of accepting
you! I never could have endured such a patient, contented, stoical
suitor, who would be perfectly happy in spite of his separation from
me."

Maurice laughed at this sally, but Gaston remarked, seriously,--

"Yet you demand great sacrifices from one who is not as patient and
well-disciplined. You make your wedding-day dependent upon Mademoiselle
Madeleine's, when Mademoiselle Madeleine declares that she does not
intend to name one."

"We are an obstinate family, you see!" retorted Bertha, her good-humor
returning.

"Will not your father miss you?" suggested the ever thoughtful Madeleine
to Maurice. "You have been absent very long; that talkative nurse may
not be able to restrain herself, and your presence may be needful to
preserve harmony."

Maurice admitted that he ought to return; but, after bidding Madeleine
adieu, he could not persuade himself to go back to the hotel until he
had seen those to whom he owed his present happiness.

"Ronald!" he exclaimed, as he entered Mrs. Walton's drawing-room; "long
ago I became largely your debtor, but now you have placed me under an
obligation which cannot be estimated. Oh, if I only had your energy and
promptitude of action, I might some day"--

Ronald interrupted him: "Then my mother was right, and I did not give
you bad advice in spite of my Quixotism?"

Maurice relate