e diabolical
expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.

"I should think so!" returned Goupil. "If she doesn't marry me I'll make
her die of grief."

"Do it, my boy, and I'll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
You can then marry a rich woman--"

"Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
you?" asked the clerk in surprise.

"She annoys me," said Minoret, gruffly.

"Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I'll rasp her," said
Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master's face.

The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.

"I don't know what the dear child has written to you," she said, "but
she is almost dead this morning."

Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.

My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.

Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
say to me, "Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
other one of these days." When I went to Paris I loved you
hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
now return to it, but