good," continued Calyste. "She often checks
the lively, venturesome language of artists so as not to shake me in a
faith which is, though she knows it not, unshakable. She has told me of
the life in Paris of several young men of the highest nobility coming
from their provinces, as I might do,--leaving families without fortune,
but obtaining in Paris, by the power of their will and their intellect,
a great career. I can do what the Baron de Rastignac, now a minister of
State, has done. Felicite has taught me; I read with her; she gives me
lessons on the piano; she is teaching me Italian; she has initiated me
into a thousand social secrets, about which no one in Guerande knows
anything at all. She could not give me the treasures of her love, but
she has given me those of her vast intellect, her mind, her genius. She
does not want to be a pleasure, but a light to me; she lessens not one
of my faiths; she herself has faith in the nobility, she loves Brittany,
she--"

"She has changed our Calyste," said his blind old aunt, interrupting
him. "I do not understand one word he has been saying. You have a solid
roof over your head, my good nephew; you have parents and relations who
adore you, and faithful servants; you can marry some good little Breton
girl, religious and accomplished, who will make you happy. Reserve your
ambitions for your eldest son, who may be four times as rich as you,
if you choose to live tranquilly, thriftily, in obscurity,--but in the
peace of God,--in order to release the burdens on your estate. It is all
as simple as a Breton heart. You will be, not so rapidly perhaps, but
more solidly, a rich nobleman."

"Your aunt is right, my darling; she plans for your happiness with as
much anxiety as I do myself. If I do not succeed in marrying you to my
niece, Margaret, the daughter of your uncle, Lord Fitzwilliam, it is
almost certain that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel will leave her fortune to
whichever of her nieces you may choose."

"And besides, there's a little gold to be found here," added the old
aunt in a low voice, with a mysterious glance about her.

"Marry! at my age!" he said, casting on his mother one of those looks
which melt the arguments of mothers. "Am I to live without my beautiful
fond loves? Must I never tremble or throb or fear or gasp, or lie
beneath implacable looks and soften them? Am I never to know beauty in
its freedom, the fantasy of the soul, the clouds that course through the
azure