who
appears to me to be worthy of you," the old father added, with a kind of
enthusiasm.

He paused an instant, looked at his daughter, and added, "Why, my poor
Julie, you are still too young, too fragile, too delicate for the cares
and rubs of married life. D'Aiglemont's relations have spoiled him, just
as your mother and I have spoiled you. What hope is there that you two
could agree, with two imperious wills diametrically opposed to
each other? You will be either the tyrant or the victim, and either
alternative means, for a wife, an equal sum of misfortune. But you are
modest and sweet-natured, you would yield from the first. In short," he
added, in a quivering voice, "there is a grace of feeling in you
which would never be valued, and then----" he broke off, for the tears
overcame him.

"Victor will give you pain through all the girlish qualities of your
young nature," he went on, after a pause. "I know what soldiers are, my
Julie; I have been in the army. In a man of that kind, love very seldom
gets the better of old habits, due partly to the miseries amid which
soldiers live, partly to the risks they run in a life of adventure."

"Then you mean to cross my inclinations, do you, father?" asked Julie,
half in earnest, half in jest. "Am I to marry to please you and not to
please myself?"

"To please me!" cried her father, with a start of surprise. "To please
_me_, child? when you will not hear the voice that upbraids you so
tenderly very much longer! But I have always heard children impute
personal motives for the sacrifices that their parents make for
them. Marry Victor, my Julie! Some day you will bitterly deplore his
ineptitude, his thriftless ways, his selfishness, his lack of delicacy,
his inability to understand love, and countless troubles arising through
him. Then, remember, that here under these trees your old father's
prophetic voice sounded in your ears in vain."

He said no more; he had detected a rebellious shake of the head on his
daughter's part. Both made several paces towards the carriage which was
waiting for them at the grating. During that interval of silence, the
young girl stole a glance at her father's face, and little by little her
sullen brow cleared. The intense pain visible on his bowed forehead made
a lively impression upon her.

"Father," she began in gentle tremulous tones, "I promise to say no more
about Victor until you have overcome your prejudices against him."

The old man