looked into the next apartment, and having satisfied herself that
it was vacant, and shut the door of communication, she prepared for her
narrative.

We have clipped the redundancies and mended the inaccuracies of honest
Marguerite's phraseology; but the substance and arrangement of the story
is recorded precisely as she gave it herself.

"Monsieur's father, they say, began with a very little money, madame,
and he made it more by--by--in short, by _usury_; I beg pardon, but they
say so, madame; and so finding as he grew old that he had a great deal
of gold, and wishing to have some one of his own flesh and blood to
leave it to, when he should be dead and buried, he bethought him of
getting a wife. He must have been a shrewd man, I need not tell you, to
have made so much money, so he was determined not to make his choice
without due consideration. Now there was a farmer near them, who had a
pretty and innocent daughter, and after much cautious inquiry and
patient study of her character, old money-bags resolved that she was
excellently suited for his purpose."

"She was young and pretty, and he old and ugly, but rich; well, what
followed?"

"Why, she, poor thing, did not want to marry him at all; for though he
was rich, he had a very ill name in the country, and she was afraid of
him; but her father urged her, and the old man himself spoke her fair,
and between them they overpowered her fears and scruples, and so she was
married."

"Poor thing!" said Lucille, unconsciously.

"Well, madame, he married, and brought her home to his desolate old
house, and there, they say, he treated her harshly; and, indeed he might
there safely use her as he pleased, for there was not another house for
a great way round to be seen: and nobody but his own creatures and
dependents, who, they said, were just as bad as himself, could hear her
cries, or witness his barbarities."

Lucille sat up in the bed, and listened with increased interest.

"Poor thing! it was there, in the midst of sufferings and cruelties,
that she gave birth to a child, who is now Monsieur Le Prun, the great
fermier-general; but her health, and indeed her heart, was broken; and,
some rumor having reached her relations, that she was sick and unhappy,
a cousin of hers, who, they said, was in love with her in their early
days, brought the village physician with him to see her, though it was
full three leagues and a half away."

"The cousin loved her; poor fellow,