iden thy child--Hast thou more
of so goodly a race?"

"God has blessed me in my offspring, mein Herr."

"Ay; God hath blessed thee!--and a great blessing it should be, as I know
by bitter experience--that is, being a bachelor, I understand the misery
of being childless--I would say no more. Sign the contract, honest
Balthazar, with thy wife and daughter, that we may have an end of this."

The family of the proscribed were about to obey this mandate, when Jacques
Colis abruptly threw down the emblems of a bridegroom, tore the contract
in fragments, and publicly announced that he had changed his intention,
and that he would not wive a headsman's child. The public mind is usually
caught by any loud declaration in favor of the ruling prejudice, and,
after the first brief pause of surprise was past, the determination of the
groom was received with a shout of applause that was immediately followed
by general, coarse, and deriding laughter. The throng pressed upon the
keepers of the limits in a still denser mass, opposing an impenetrable
wall of human bodies to the passage of any in either direction, and a dead
stillness succeeded, as if all present breathlessly awaited the result of
the singular scene.

So unexpected and sudden was the purpose of the groom, that they who were
most affected by it, did not, at first, fully comprehend the extent of
the disgrace that was so publicly heaped upon them The innocent and
unpractised Christine stood resembling the cold statue of a vestal, with
the pen raised ready to affix her as yet untarnished name to the contract,
in an attitude of suspense, while her wondering look followed the
agitation of the multitude, as the startled bird, before it takes wing,
regards a movement among the leaves of the bush. But there was no escape
from the truth. Conviction of its humiliating nature came too soon, and,
by the time the calm of intense curiosity had succeeded to the momentary
excitement of the spectators, she was standing an exquisite but painful
picture of wounded feminine feeling and of maiden shame. Her parents, too,
were stupified by the suddenness of the unexpected shock, and it was
longer before their faculties recovered the tone proper to meet an insult
so unprovoked and gross.

"This is unusual;" drily remarked the bailiff, who was the first to break
the long and painful silence.

"It is brutal!" warmly interposed the Signor Grimaldi. "Unless there has
been deception practised on