made an effort and restrained himself.

"But," said he, "I thought that the bourgeois whom I saw on the
terrace--for no doubt it is of him that you speak, Monsieur Boniface--"

"Of himself, the old rascal; what did you think of him?"

"That he was her father."

"Her father! not quite. Mademoiselle Bathilde has no father."

"Then, at least, her uncle?"

"Her uncle after the Bretagne fashion, but in no other manner."

"Monsieur," said Madame Denis, majestically coming out of the room, to
the most distant part of which she had doubtless consigned her
daughters, "I have asked you, once for all, not to talk improprieties
before your sisters."

"Ah, yes," said Boniface, "my sisters; do you believe that, at their
age, they cannot understand what I said, particularly Emilie, who is
three-and-twenty years old?"

"Emilie is as innocent as a new-born child," said Madame Denis, seating
herself between Brigaud and D'Harmental.

"I should advise you not to reckon on that. I found a pretty romance for
Lent in our innocent's room. I will show it to you, Pere Brigaud; you
are her confessor, and we shall see if you gave her permission to read
her prayers from it."

"Hold your tongue, mischief-maker," said the abbe, "do you not see how
you are grieving your mother?"

Indeed Madame Denis, ashamed of this scene passing before a young man on
whom, with a mother's foresight, she had already begun to cast an eye,
was nearly fainting. There is nothing in which men believe less than in
women's faintings, and nothing to which they give way more easily.
Whether he believed in it or not, D'Harmental was too polite not to show
his hostess some attention in such circumstances. He advanced toward her
with his arms extended. Madame Denis no sooner saw this support offered
to her than she let herself fall, and, throwing her head back, fainted
in the chevalier's arms.

"Abbe," said D'Harmental, while Boniface profited by the circumstance to
fill his pockets with all the bon-bons left on the table, "bring a
chair."

The abbe pushed forward a chair with the nonchalance of a man familiar
with such accidents, and who is beforehand quite secure as to the
result.

They seated Madame Denis, and D'Harmental gave her some salts, while the
Abbe Brigaud tapped her softly in the hollow of the hand; but, in spite
of these cares, Madame Denis did not appear disposed to return to
herself; when all at once, when they least expected it, she started to