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_The Helmet._

From the French by Ferdinand Beissier.

[Illustration]

"But, uncle--I love my cousin!"

"Get out!"

"Give her to me."

"Don't bother me!"

"It will be my death!"

"Nonsense! you'll console yourself with some other girl."

"Pray--"

My uncle, whose back had been towards me, whirled round, his face red to
bursting, and brought his closed fist down upon the counter with a
heavy thump.

"Never!" he cried; "never: Do you hear what I say?"

And as I looked at him beseechingly and with joined hands, he went on:--

"A pretty husband you look like!--without a sou, and dreaming of going
into housekeeping! A nice mess I should make of it, by giving you my
daughter! It's no use your insisting. You know that when I have said
'No,' nothing under the sun can make me say 'Yes'!"

I ceased to make any further appeal. I knew my uncle--about as
headstrong an old fellow as could be found in a day's search. I
contented myself with giving vent to a deep sigh, and then went on with
the furbishing of a big, double-handed sword, rusty from point to hilt.

This memorable conversation took place, in fact, in the shop of my
maternal uncle, a well-known dealer in antiquities and _objets d'art_,
No. 53, Rue des Claquettes, at the sign of the "Maltese Cross"--a
perfect museum of curiosities.

The walls were hung with Marseilles and old Rouen china, facing ancient
cuirasses, sabres, and muskets, and picture frames; below these were
ranged old cabinets, coffers of all sorts, and statues of saints,
one-armed or one-legged for the most part and dilapidated as to their
gilding; then, here and there, in glass cases, hermetically closed and
locked, there were knick-knacks in infinite variety--lachrymatories,
tiny urns, rings, precious stones, fragments of marble, bracelets,
crosses, necklaces, medals, and miniature ivory statuettes, the yellow
tints of which, in the sun, took momentarily a flesh-like transparency.

Time out of mind the shop had belonged to the Cornuberts. It passed
regularly from father to son, and my uncle--his neighbours said--could
not but be the possessor of a nice little fortune. Held in esteem by
all, a Municipal Councillor, impressed by the importance and gravity of
his office, short, fat, highly choleric and headstrong, but at bottom
not in the least degree an unkind sort of man--such was my uncle
Cornubert, my only living male relative, who, as soon