it to you, my
dear cousin, that I do not love Mademoiselle d'Aubrion; but in
marrying her I secure to my children a social rank whose
advantages will one day be incalculable: monarchical principles
are daily coming more and more into favor. Thus in course of time
my son, when he becomes Marquis d'Aubrion, having, as he then will
have, an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand francs a
year, can obtain any position in the State which he may think
proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children.

You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state of my
heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possibly, after seven
years' separation, you have yourself forgotten our youthful loves;
but I have never forgotten either your kindness or my own words. I
remember all, even words that were lightly uttered,--words by
which a man less conscientious than I, with a heart less youthful
and less upright, would scarcely feel himself bound. In telling
you that the marriage I propose to make is solely one of
convenience, that I still remember our childish love, am I not
putting myself entirely in your hands and making you the mistress
of my fate? am I not telling you that if I must renounce my social
ambitions, I shall willingly content myself with the pure and
simple happiness of which you have shown me so sweet an image?

"Tan, ta, ta--tan, ta, ti," sang Charles Grandet to the air of _Non piu
andrai_, as he signed himself,--

Your devoted cousin, Charles.

"Thunder! that's doing it handsomely!" he said, as he looked about him
for the cheque; having found it, he added the words:--

P.S.--I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank for eight
thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which includes the
capital and interest of the sum you were kind enough to lend me. I
am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few things
which you must allow me to offer you as a mark of my unceasing
gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the diligence to the
hotel d'Aubrion, rue Hillerin-Bertin.

"By the diligence!" said Eugenie. "A thing for which I would have laid
down my life!"

Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not
a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves
abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they
will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,--to the scaff