efers to be modest, and avoids fortune-hunting girls. You are old
enough to settle down, and with your fortune and his you might be a
leader in Parisian society. There's no place in the world where money
and good looks together will do so much for one as they will in
Paris." Think of it, Hilda! If I had not felt so at peace with all the
world just then, there would have been an--occurrence then and there.
But I held my tongue, and was even inclined to be a little sorry that
aunt's silly talk was making me feel a genuine antipathy for M.
Maurice Voisin of Paris renown; and really at that time I hardly knew
the man. He is certainly rather good-looking, in a dark, Spanish
fashion, and he is taller and somehow more muscular-looking than the
typical Frenchman. He is certainly polished, shines almost too much
for my liking; but that may be, really, Aunt Charl's fault rather than
Mr. V.'s. That night, at least before supper, I had no word or thought
against him.

'But I must get on about him, and I'll make it very short. You know
how our conservatory is arranged, and that little nook just at the
entrance to the library, where the palms are grouped? Well, I had
danced with them both, and he had just asked me to go with him into
the conservatory, "to sit out a waltz," when M. Voisin came to claim
it. I had for the moment forgotten it, and he had only time to say
just one word--"after."

'Well, I'll be candid, if it does humiliate me; after that waltz I
eluded M. Voisin, leaving him with Aunt Charl, and went into the
conservatory.

'It was so early, and the dancers still so fresh, that no one was
there as yet. I had been stopped once or twice on my way, and when I
entered the conservatory by way of the drawing-room, I fancied for a
moment that someone was standing in the shadow of the palms, just
inside the library door; but I went on, and reached the nook without
being observed. I sat down, quite out of sight, thinking that if he
entered from the ball-room the most direct way I should see him first.
Imagine my surprise, then, when almost instantly I heard a movement on
the other side of the mound of fairy palms, and then at the very first
word came my own name. There! I will not repeat the shameful words,
but it was his voice that owned to an intention to "honour" me with a
proposal, because his finances were getting low, and he must choose
matrimony as the least of two evils, etc. While I sat there, unable to
move, and half