mly to this.

Was there not some reason to think they had saved their mother's very
life by these reticences? Josephine assented. "And, Josephine, you are
of age; you are your own mistress; you have a right to marry whom you
please: and, sooner or later, you will certainly marry Camille. I doubt
whether even our mother could prevail on you to refuse him altogether.
So it is but a question of time, and of giving our mother pain, or
sparing her pain. Dear mamma is old; she is prejudiced. Why shock her
prejudices? She could not be brought to understand the case: these
things never happened in her day. Everything seems to have gone by rule
then. Let us do nothing to worry her for the short time she has to
live. Let us take a course between pain to her and cruelty to you and
Camille."

These arguments went far to convince Josephine: for her own heart
supported them. She went from her solid objections to untenable ones--a
great point gained. She urged the difficulty, the impossibility of a
secret marriage.

Camille burst in here: he undertook at once to overcome these imaginary
difficulties. "They could be married at a distance."

"You will find no priest who will consent to do such a wicked thing as
marry us without my mother's knowledge," objected Josephine.

"Oh! as to that," said Rose, "you know the mayor marries people
nowadays."

"I will not be married again without a priest," said Josephine, sharply.

"Nor I," said Camille. "I know a mayor who will do the civil forms for
me, and a priest who will marry me in the sight of Heaven, and both will
keep it secret for love of me till it shall please Josephine to throw
off this disguise."

"Who is the priest?" inquired Josephine, keenly.

"An old cure: he lives near Frejus: he was my tutor, and the mayor is
the mayor of Frejus, also an old friend of mine."

"But what on earth will you say to them?"

"That is my affair: I must give them some reasons which compel me to
keep my marriage secret. Oh! I shall have to tell them some fibs, of
course."

"There, I thought so! I will not have you telling fibs; it lowers you."

"Of course it does; but you can't have secrecy without a fib or two."

"Fibs that will injure no one," said Rose, majestically.

From this day Camille began to act as well as to talk. He bought a
light caleche and a powerful horse, and elected factotum Dard his groom.
Camille rode over to Frejus and told a made-up story to the old cure and
the ma