the chevalier.

"About her property?" asked the baron.

"Her property?" continued the old maid. "Oh, she is running through it."

"The game is mine!" said the baroness. "See, I have king, queen, knave
of trumps, Mistigris, and a king. We win the basket, sister."

This victory, gained at one stroke, without playing a card, horrified
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who ceased to concern herself about Calyste
and Mademoiselle des Touches. By nine o'clock no one remained in the
salon but the baroness and the rector. The four old people had gone to
their beds. The chevalier, according to his usual custom, accompanied
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel to her house in the Place de Guerande, making
remarks as they went along on the cleverness of the last play, on
the joy with which Mademoiselle Zephirine engulfed her gains in those
capacious pockets of hers,--for the old blind woman no longer repressed
upon her face the visible signs of her feelings. Madame du Guenic's
evident preoccupation was the chief topic of conversation, however. The
chevalier had remarked the abstraction of the beautiful Irish woman.
When they reached Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's door-step, and her page
had gone in, the old lady answered, confidentially, the remarks of the
chevalier on the strangely abstracted air of the baroness:--

"I know the cause. Calyste is lost unless we marry him promptly. He
loves Mademoiselle des Touches, an actress!"

"In that case, send for Charlotte."

"I have sent; my sister will receive my letter to-morrow," replied
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, bowing to the chevalier.

Imagine from this sketch of a normal evening the hubbub excited in
Guerande homes by the arrival, the stay, the departure, or even the mere
passage through the town, of a stranger.

When no sounds echoed from the baron's chamber nor from that of his
sister, the baroness looked at the rector, who was playing pensively
with the counters.

"I see that you begin to share my anxiety about Calyste," she said to
him.

"Did you notice Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's displeased looks to-night?"
asked the rector.

"Yes," replied the baroness.

"She has, as I know, the best intentions about our dear Calyste; she
loves him as though he were her son, his conduct in Vendee beside his
father, the praises that MADAME bestowed upon his devotion, have only
increased her affection for him. She intends to execute a deed of gift
by which she gives her whole property at her death to whi