sent? These questions, which I have a right to
ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it.
Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing
except from friends, and I have no friendship for you."

"Then you refuse?" cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
never entered that a fortune could be rejected.

"I refuse," said Ursula.

"But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
fortune?" asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. "You have an
idea--have you an idea?--"

"Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her."

"Well, we'll see about it," said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
"Give us time to think it over."

He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
father for his son's interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for
Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
colonel of the regiment in garrison.

"I come to bring you some good news," said Bongrand to Desire; "you love
your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged."

"I love Ursula Mirouet!" cried Desire, laughing. "Where did you get that
idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret's;
she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
for that rather insipid little blonde," he added, smiling at the
sub-prefect's wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use a term of the
last century). "You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll
of forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at
Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late
great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies
would consider me a fool."

"Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?"