fingers. Do not hesitate to accept this good
Master Rene's present, which thousands of others could not obtain for
money or entreaty."

As she spoke she continued to press the casket on Mademoiselle Scuderi;
and now Cardillac sank again on his knees, kissed her dress, her hands,
sighed, wept, sobbed, sprang up, and ran off in frantic haste,
upsetting chairs and tables, so that the glass and porcelain crashed
and clattered together.

In much alarm, Mademoiselle Scuderi cried, "In the name of all the
saints, what is the matter with the man?" But the Marquise, in
particularly happy temper, laughed aloud, saying, "What it is,
Mademoiselle; that Master Rene is over head and ears in love with you,
and, according to the laws of _la galanterie_, begins to lay siege to
your heart with a valuable present." She carried this jest further,
begging Mademoiselle Scuderi not to be too obdurate towards this
despairing lover of hers; and Mademoiselle Scuderi, in her turn, borne
away on a current of merry fancies, said, "If things were so, she would
not be able to refrain from delighting the world with the unprecedented
spectacle of a goldsmith's bride of three-and-seventy summers, and
unexceptionable descent." Madame de Maintenon offered to twine the
bridal wreath herself, and give her a few hints as to the duties of a
housewife, a subject on which such a poor inexperienced little chit
could not be expected to know very much.

But, notwithstanding all the jesting and the laughter, when
Mademoiselle Scuderi rose to depart, she became very grave again when
her hand rested upon the jewel casket. "Whatever happens," she said, "I
shall never be able to bring myself to wear these ornaments. They have,
at all events, been in the hands of one of those diabolical men, who
rob and slay with the audacity of the evil one himself, and are very
probably in league with him. I shudder at the thought of the blood
which seems to cling to those glittering stones--and even Cardillac's
behaviour had something about it which struck me as being singularly
wild and eery. I cannot drive away from me a gloomy foreboding that
there is some terrible and frightful mystery hidden behind all this;
and yet, when I bring the whole affair, with all the circumstances of
it, as clearly as I can before my mental vision, I cannot form the
slightest idea what that mystery can be--and, above all, how the good,
honourable Master Rene--the very model of what a good, well-beh