charm, the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest
and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.

The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
and the viscount and Ursula.

"You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle," he said, when the young
girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. "Who is your
master?"

"A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti," said the
doctor. "If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay
in Paris he would have been here to-day."

"He is not only a great musician," said Ursula, "but a man of adorable
simplicity of nature."

"Those lessons must cost a great deal," remarked Desire.

The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air
of a man who fulfills a duty.

"Monsieur," he said, "I am grateful for the feeling which leads you
to make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here,
in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if
I do not beg her, in my niece's name and my own, to do us the honor of
dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would
find herself indisposed on that day."

The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
respectfully, saying:--

"You are quite right, monsieur."

He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
more of sadness than disappointment.

Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
house precipitately.

CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS

This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
regarded their inheritance as rescued.

So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
military subordination,--that