und principles would become so rare? Well, I will be
your confidant. My dear child, I see that his young gentleman is not
indifferent to you. Hush! All the family would laugh at us if we sailed
under the wrong flag. You know what that means. We two will keep our
secret, and I promise to bring him straight into the drawing-room."

"When, uncle?"

"To-morrow."

"But, my dear uncle, I am not committed to anything?"

"Nothing whatever, and you may bombard him, set fire to him, and leave
him to founder like an old hulk if you choose. He won't be the first, I
fancy?"

"You ARE kind, uncle!"

As soon as the Count got home he put on his glasses, quietly took
the card out of his pocket, and read, "Maximilien Longueville, Rue de
Sentier."

"Make yourself happy, my dear niece," he said to Emilie, "you may
hook him with any easy conscience; he belongs to one of our historical
families, and if he is not a peer of France, he infallibly will be."

"How do you know so much?"

"That is my secret."

"Then do you know his name?"

The old man bowed his gray head, which was not unlike a gnarled
oak-stump, with a few leaves fluttering about it, withered by autumnal
frosts; and his niece immediately began to try the ever-new power of her
coquettish arts. Long familiar with the secret of cajoling the old man,
she lavished on him the most childlike caresses, the tenderest names;
she even went so far as to kiss him to induce him to divulge so
important a secret. The old man, who spent his life in playing off these
scenes on his niece, often paying for them with a present of jewelry,
or by giving her his box at the opera, this time amused himself with
her entreaties, and, above all, her caresses. But as he spun out this
pleasure too long, Emilie grew angry, passed from coaxing to sarcasm and
sulks; then, urged by curiosity, she recovered herself. The diplomatic
admiral extracted a solemn promise from his niece that she would for
the future be gentler, less noisy, and less wilful, that she would spend
less, and, above all, tell him everything. The treaty being concluded,
and signed by a kiss impressed on Emilie's white brow, he led her into
a corner of the room, drew her on to his knee, held the card under the
thumbs so as to hide it, and then uncovered the letters one by one,
spelling the name of Longueville; but he firmly refused to show her
anything more.

This incident added to the intensity of Mademoiselle de Fontaine's
secre