they fancy I deprive them of
their inheritance to enrich you."

"But you won't do that?" said Ursula naively, looking up at him.

"Oh, divine consolation of my old age!" said the doctor, taking his
godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. "It was for her
and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live
until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!--You
will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and
Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and
prolong my life; they are longing for my death."

"God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is--Ah! I despise them!"
exclaimed Ursula.

"Dinner is ready!" called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
garden side, was at the end of the corridor.

CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE

Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty
dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer
(the folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his
coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground,
and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.

"Well," said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
old man, "the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs."

"What did I tell you, Ursula?" cried the doctor. "At the risk of
grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
on your guard against undeserved enmity."

"I should like to say a word to you on this subject," said Bongrand,
seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula's future.

The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up
and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis's opinion as
to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter
had been much discussed among the lawyers of the littl