ous denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never
get from Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy."

"What droll professions there are in Paris!" said Madame d'Anville. "As
if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we
go for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never
again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you
have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in
that charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I
think you were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its
allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!" The young mother
said this laughingly and carelessly.

"Pooh!" returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
broke over her natural paleness. "But a propos of the Vicomte. You
know how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English
wife--never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in
England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that
he has a son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor
youth."

"Indeed! and how?"

"Why," said Eugenie, with a smile, "he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed
to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c.,
form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father
treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the
father whatever benefits the marriage might confer."

"Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people's
heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!"

"A delightful ball," said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the
hostess. "Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any
fortune? She is pretty--eh? You observe she is looking at me--I mean at
us!"

"My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two
wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!"

"What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your
bewitching sex. Hum--what fortune has she?"

"Not a sou; besides, she is engaged."

"Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all. I made a mistake.
I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue."

"Worse and wors