xpose her? Was she not about rushing
blindfolded towards those deceiving perils where a young girl
leaves her reputation, even when she saves her honor?

She thought, for a moment, of consulting her mother. But she knew
Mme. Favoral's shrinking timidity, and that she was as incapable
of giving any advice as to make her will prevail. She would be
frightened; she would approve all; and, at the first alarm, she
would confess all.

"Am I, then, so weak and so foolish," she thought, "that I cannot
take a determination which affects me personally?"

She could not close her eyes all night; but in the morning her
resolution was settled.

And toward one o'clock:

"Are we not going out mother?" she said.

Mme. Favoral was hesitating.

"These early spring days are treacherous," she objected: "you
caught cold yesterday."

"My dress was too thin. To-day I have taken my precautions."

They started, taking their work with them, and came to occupy their
accustomed seats.

Before they had even passed the gates, Mlle. Gilberte had recognized
Marius de Tregars and the Count de Villegre, walking in one of the
side alleys. Soon, as on the day before, they took two chairs, and
settled themselves within hearing.

Never had the young girl's heart beat with such violence. It is
easy enough to take a resolution; but it is not always quite so easy
to execute it, and she was asking herself if she would have strength
enough to articulate a word. At last, gathering her whole courage:

"You don't believe in dreams, do you mother?" she asked.

Upon this subject, as well as upon many others, Mme. Favoral had no
particular opinion.

"Why do you ask the question?" said she.

"Because I have had such a strange one."

"Oh!"

"It seemed to me that suddenly a young man, whom I did not know,
stood before me. He would have been most happy, said he to me, to
ask my hand, but he dared not, being very poor. And he begged me
to wait three years, during which he would make his fortune."

Mme. Favoral smiled.

"Why it's quite a romance," said she.

"But it wasn't a romance in my dream," interrupted Mlle. Gilberte.
"This young man spoke in a tone of such profound conviction, that
it was impossible for me, as it were, to doubt him. I thought to
myself that he would be incapable of such an odious villainy as to
abuse the confiding credulity of a poor girl."

"And what did you answer him?"

Moving her seat almost imperceptibly, M