ery fond of them. We will go and see them. I
want to. I will speak of this to you again. I, too, am a daughter of
poor people, but I have lost my parents. I have no longer anyone in the
world." She held out her hand to him as she added: "But you."

He felt softened, moved, overcome, as he had been by no other woman.

"I had thought about one matter," she continued, "but it is rather
difficult to explain."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Well, it is this, my dear boy, I am like all women, I have my
weaknesses, my pettinesses. I love all that glitters, that catches the
ear. I should have so delighted to have borne a noble name. Could you
not, on the occasion of your marriage, ennoble yourself a little?"

She had blushed in her turn, as if she had proposed something
indelicate.

He replied simply enough: "I have often thought about it, but it did not
seem to me so easy."

"Why so?"

He began to laugh, saying: "Because I was afraid of making myself look
ridiculous."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Not at all, not at all Every one does it,
and nobody laughs. Separate your name in two--Du Roy. That looks very
well."

He replied at once like a man who understands the matter in question:
"No, that will not do at all. It is too simple, too common, too
well-known. I had thought of taking the name of my native place, as a
literary pseudonym at first, then of adding it to my own by degrees, and
then, later on, of even cutting my name in two, as you suggest."

"Your native place is Canteleu?" she queried.

"Yes."

She hesitated, saying: "No, I do not like the termination. Come, cannot
we modify this word Canteleu a little?"

She had taken up a pen from the table, and was scribbling names and
studying their physiognomy. All at once she exclaimed: "There, there it
is!" and held out to him a paper, on which read--"Madame Duroy de
Cantel."

He reflected a few moments, and then said gravely: "Yes, that does very
well."

She was delighted, and kept repeating "Duroy de Cantel, Duroy de Cantel,
Madame Duroy de Cantel. It is capital, capital." She went on with an air
of conviction: "And you will see how easy it is to get everyone to
accept it. But one must know how to seize the opportunity, for it will
be too late afterwards. You must from to-morrow sign your descriptive
articles D. de Cantel, and your 'Echoes' simply Duroy. It is done every
day in the press, and no one will be astonished to see you take a
pseudonym. At the m