e world, I have never doubted yours. I beg you therefore to
settle all my affairs, and I trust to you to get as much as you
can out of my possessions. By this time you know my situation. I
have nothing left, and I intend to go at once to the Indies. I
have just written to all the people to whom I think I owe money,
and you will find enclosed a list of their names, as correct as I
can make it from memory. My books, my furniture, my pictures, my
horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do not wish to
keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles which might serve as
the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. My dear Alphonse, I
will send you a proper power of attorney under which you can make
these sales. Send me all my weapons. Keep Briton for yourself;
nobody would pay the value of that noble beast, and I would rather
give him to you--like a mourning-ring bequeathed by a dying man to
his executor. Farry, Breilmann, & Co. built me a very comfortable
travelling-carriage, which they have not yet delivered; persuade
them to keep it and not ask for any payment on it. If they refuse,
do what you can in the matter, and avoid everything that might
seem dishonorable in me under my present circumstances. I owe the
British Islander six louis, which I lost at cards; don't fail to
pay him--

"Dear cousin!" whispered Eugenie, throwing down the letter and running
softly back to her room, carrying one of the lighted candles. A thrill
of pleasure passed over her as she opened the drawer of an old oak
cabinet, a fine specimen of the period called the Renaissance, on which
could still be seen, partly effaced, the famous royal salamander. She
took from the drawer a large purse of red velvet with gold tassels,
edged with a tarnished fringe of gold wire,--a relic inherited from her
grandmother. She weighed it proudly in her hand, and began with delight
to count over the forgotten items of her little hoard. First she took
out twenty _portugaises_, still new, struck in the reign of John V.,
1725, worth by exchange, as her father told her, five _lisbonnines_,
or a hundred and sixty-eight francs, sixty-four centimes each; their
conventional value, however, was a hundred and eighty francs apiece, on
account of the rarity and beauty of the coins, which shone like little
suns. Item, five _genovines_, or five hundred-franc pieces of Genoa;
another very rare coin worth eighty-seven francs on exchan