ht to be. I should certainly
pay you the first visit if my health did not compel me just now to
keep the house; for which I offer my affectionate regrets. I shall
be delighted to see my nephew, whom I invite to dine with me
to-morrow,--young men are less sensitive than women about the
company. It will give me pleasure if Messrs. Baruch Borniche and
Francois Hochon will accompany him.

Your affectionate brother,

J.-J. Rouget.

"Say that we are at breakfast, but that Madame Bridau will send an
answer presently, and the invitations are all accepted," said Monsieur
Hochon to the servant.

The old man laid a finger on his lips, to require silence from
everybody. When the street-door was shut, Monsieur Hochon, little
suspecting the intimacy between his grandsons and Max, threw one of his
slyest looks at his wife and Agathe, remarking,--

"He is just as capable of writing that note as I am of giving away
twenty-five louis; it is the soldier who is corresponding with us!"

"What does that portend?" asked Madame Hochon. "Well, never mind; we
will answer him. As for you, monsieur," she added, turning to Joseph,
"you must dine there; but if--"

The old lady was stopped short by a look from her husband. Knowing how
warm a friendship she felt for Agathe, old Hochon was in dread lest she
should leave some legacy to her goddaughter in case the latter lost the
Rouget property. Though fifteen years older than his wife, the miser
hoped to inherit her fortune, and to become eventually the sole master
of their whole property. That hope was a fixed idea with him. Madame
Hochon knew that the best means of obtaining a few concessions from
her husband was to threaten him with her will. Monsieur Hochon now took
sides with his guests. An enormous fortune was at stake; with a sense
of social justice, he wished it to go to the natural heirs, instead of
being pillaged by unworthy outsiders. Moreover, the sooner the matter
was decided, the sooner he should get rid of his guests. Now that the
struggle between the interlopers and the heirs, hitherto existing only
in his wife's mind, had become an actual fact, Monsieur Hochon's keen
intelligence, lulled to sleep by the monotony of provincial life, was
fully roused. Madame Hochon had been agreeably surprised that morning
to perceive, from a few affectionate words which the old man had said to
her about Agathe, that so able and subtle an auxiliary was on the Bridau
side.

To