act--not mine. You
may, therefore, prepare to receive your daughter back, when I think fit
to send her--disgraced and dishonoured; and then try if you can match
her with a Duke. I leave you to digest this piece of information, and
now wish you good-morning. You have my address, when you feel inclined
to apologise, and do me the justice which I shall expect before a legal
marriage takes place."

So saying, the Colonel left the house; and it would be difficult to say
which of the three parties was in the greatest rage.

The Colonel, who had become sincerely attached to Adele, who had well
profited by the time which she had gained, returned home in no very
pleasant humour. Throwing himself down on the sofa, he said to her in a
moody way, "I'll be candid with you, my dear; if I had seen your father
and mother before I married you, nothing would have persuaded me to have
made you my wife. When a man marries, I consider connexion and fortune
to be the two greatest points to be obtained, but such animals as your
father and mother I never beheld. Good Heaven! that I should be allied
to such people!"

"May I ask you, dearest, to whom you refer, and what is the meaning of
all this? My father and mother! Why, Colonel, my father was killed at
the attack of Montmartre, and my mother died before him."

"Then who and what are you," cried the Colonel, jumping up; "are you not
Caroline Stanhope?"

"I thank Heaven I am not. I have always told you that I was Adele
Chabot, and no other person. You must admit that. My father and mother
were no vulgar people, dearest husband, and my family is as good as most
in France. Come over with me to Paris, and you will then see who my
relatives and connexions are. I am poor, I grant, but recollect that
the revolution exiled many wealthy families, and mine among the rest,
although we were permitted eventually to return to France. What can
have induced you to fall into this error, and still persist
(notwithstanding my assertions to the contrary), that I am the daughter
of those vulgar upstarts, who are proverbial for their want of manners,
and who are not admitted into hardly any society, rich as they are
supposed to be?"

The Colonel looked all amazement.

"I'm sorry you are disappointed, dearest," continued Adele, "if you are
so. I am sorry that I'm not Caroline Stanhope with a large fortune, but
if I do not bring you a fortune, by economy I will save you one. Let me
only see