e cellars?"

"I cannot help myself."

"Belle-Rose is worth six hundred thousand francs."

"Natalie will buy it in; I have advised her to do so."

"I might push the price to seven hundred thousand, and the farms are
worth a hundred thousand each."

"Then if the house in Bordeaux can be sold for two hundred thousand--"

"Solonet will give more than that; he wants it. He is retiring with
a handsome property made by gambling on the Funds. He has sold his
practice for three hundred thousand francs, and marries a mulatto woman.
God knows how she got her money, but they say it amounts to millions. A
notary gambling in stocks! a notary marrying a black woman! What an age!
It is said that he speculates for your mother-in-law with her funds."

"She has greatly improved Lanstrac and taken great pains with its
cultivation. She has amply repaid me for the use of it."

"I shouldn't have thought her capable of that."

"She is so kind and so devoted; she has always paid Natalie's debts
during the three months she spent with us every year in Paris."

"She could well afford to do so, for she gets her living out of
Lanstrac," said Mathias. "She! grown economical! what a miracle! I am
told she has just bought the domain of Grainrouge between Lanstrac and
Grassol; so that if the Lanstrac avenue were extended to the high-road,
you would drive four and a half miles through your own property to reach
the house. She paid one hundred thousand francs down for Grainrouge."

"She is as handsome as ever," said Paul; "country life preserves her
freshness; I don't mean to go to Lanstrac and bid her good-bye; her
heart would bleed for me too much."

"You would go in vain; she is now in Paris. She probably arrived there
as you left."

"No doubt she had heard of the sale of my property and came to help me.
I have no complaint to make of life, Mathias. I am truly loved,--as much
as any man ever could be here below; beloved by two women who outdo each
other in devotion; they are even jealous of each other; the daughter
blames the mother for loving me too much, and the mother reproaches the
daughter for what she calls her dissipations. I may say that this
great affection has been my ruin. How could I fail to satisfy even
the slightest caprice of a loving wife? Impossible to restrain myself!
Neither could I accept any sacrifice on her part. We might certainly, as
you say, live at Lanstrac, save my income, and part with her diamonds,
but I woul