y
true mother desired to regain me. Madame Surville was then dead. She
failed to trace me out, owing, alas! to my own faults and change of
name. She then entered a nunnery, but, before doing so, assigned a sum
of 100,000 francs to this gentleman, who was distantly connected with
her, with full power to him to take it to himself, or give it to my use
should he discover me, at his discretion. 'I ask you,' continued the
Monsieur, 'to go with me to Mons. N------'s, because the sum is still in
his hands. He will confirm my statement. All that I have now to say is
this, If you accept my guardianship, if you obey implicitly my advice,
I shall consider the interest of this sum which has accumulated since
deposited with M. ----- due to you; and the capital will be your dot on
marriage, if the marriage be with my consent.'"

Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, until
now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, "Did your
Monsieur, fort bel homme, you say, inform you of the value of the
advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?"

"Yes," answered Julie, "not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived at
M. N-----'s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that he
held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him,
with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had
deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the
money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it
absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady's death. So you
see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had
liked."

"Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his name."

"No; he forbids me to do it yet."

"And he took this apartment for you, and gave you money to buy that
smart dress and these furs. Bah! mon enfant, why try to deceive me? Do I
not know my Paris? A fort bel homme does not make himself guardian to
a fort belle fine so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin
without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself."

Julie's eyes flashed. "Ah, Gustave! ah, Monsieur!" she said, half
angrily, half plaintively, "I see that my guardian knew you better than
I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou halt the right to despise
me."

"Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee," said Gustave, somewhat
disconcerted. "But own that thy story is str