o the government."

"I am sure we ask nothing better than to be on your side," replied the
sheriff's wife. "Mollot has told me," she continued in a low voice,
"what took place here to-day--it is pitiable! Only one man showed
talent, and that was Achille Pigoult. Everybody agrees that he would
make a fine orator in the Chamber; and therefore, though he has nothing,
and my daughter has a _dot_ of sixty thousand francs, not to speak of
what, as an only child, she will inherit from us and also from her uncle
at Mollot and from my aunt Lambert at Troyes,--well, I declare to you
that if Monsieur Achille Pigoult did us the honor to ask her to wife,
I should give her to him; yes, I should--provided always she liked
him. But the silly little goose wants to marry as she pleases; it is
Mademoiselle Beauvisage who puts such notions into her head."

The sub-prefect received this double broadside like a man who knows he
has thirty thousand francs a year, and expects a prefecture.

"Mademoiselle is right," he said, looking at Cecile; "she is rich enough
to make a marriage of love."

"Don't let us talk about marriage," said Ernestine; "it saddens my
poor dear Cecile, who was owning to me just now that in order not to be
married for her money, but for herself, she should like an affair with
some stranger who knew nothing of Arcis and her future expectations as
Lady Croesus, and would spin her a romance to end in true love and a
marriage."

"That's a very pretty idea!" cried Olivier Vinet, joining the group of
young ladies in order to get away from the partisans of Simon, the
idol of the day. "I always knew that Mademoiselle had as much sense as
money."

"And," continued Ernestine, "she has selected for the hero of her
romance--"

"Oh!" interrupted Madame Mollot, "an old man of fifty!--fie!"

"How do you know he is fifty?" asked Olivier Vinet, laughing.

"How?" replied Madame Mollot. "Why, this morning I was so puzzled that I
got out my opera-glass--"

"Bravo!" cried the superintendent of _ponts et chaussees_, who was
paying court to the mother to obtain the daughter.

"And so," continued Madame Mollot, "I was able to see him shaving; with
such elegant razors!--mounted in gold, or silver-gilt!"

"Gold! gold, of course!" said Vinet. "When things are unknown they
should always be imagined of the finest quality. Consequently I, not
having seen this gentleman, am perfectly sure that he is at least a
count."

This speech crea