articles of furniture--a table, some
chairs, and a couple of beds. My daughter designed it as a home for old
Father Guvat and his wife. And I, surrounded by wealth and luxury, said
to myself: 'How comfortable those two old people will be there.
They will live as snug as a bug in a rug!' Well, what I thought so
comfortable for others, will be good enough for me. I will raise
vegetables, and Marie-Anne shall sell them."

Was he speaking seriously?

Maurice must have supposed so, for he sprang forward.

"This shall not be, Monsieur Lacheneur!" he exclaimed.

"Oh----"

"No, this shall not be, for I love Marie-Anne, and I ask you to give her
to me for my wife."

CHAPTER VI

Maurice and Marie-Anne had loved each other for many years.

As children, they had played together in the magnificent grounds
surrounding the Chateau de Sairmeuse, and in the park at Escorval.

Together they chased the brilliant butterflies, searched for pebbles
on the banks of the river, or rolled in the hay while their mothers
sauntered through the meadows bordering the Oiselle.

For their mothers were friends.

Mme. Lacheneur had been reared like other poor peasant girls; that is
to say, on the day of her marriage it was only with great difficulty she
succeeded in inscribing her name upon the register.

But from the example of her husband she had learned that prosperity, as
well as _noblesse_, entails certain obligations upon one, and with rare
courage, crowned with still rarer success, she had undertaken to acquire
an education in keeping with her fortune and her new rank.

And the baroness had made no effort to resist the sympathy that
attracted her to this meritorious young woman, in whom she had discerned
a really superior mind and a truly refined nature.

When Mme. Lacheneur died, Mme. d'Escorval mourned for her as she would
have mourned for a favorite sister.

From that moment Maurice's attachment assumed a more serious character.

Educated in a Parisian lyceum, his teachers sometimes had occasion to
complain of his want of application.

"If your professors are not satisfied with you," said his mother, "you
shall not accompany me to Escorval on the coming of your vacation, and
you will not see your little friend."

And this simple threat was always sufficient to make the school-boy
resume his studies with redoubled diligence.

So each year, as it passed, strengthened the _grande passion_ which
preserved Maurice from th