e!

"It's outrageous!

"But this woman--this young girl--her name?

"I've told you a hundred times: Clementine!"

"Clementine what?

"Clementine Pichon."

"Gracious Heavens! My keys! Where are my keys? I'm sure I put them in my
pocket! Clementine Pichon! M. Langevin! It's impossible! My senses are
forsaking me! Come, my child, bestir yourself! The happiness of your
whole life is concerned. Where _did_ you poke my keys? Ah! Here they
are!"

Fougas bent over to Clementine's ear, and said:

"Is she subject to these attacks? One, would suppose that the poor old
girl had lost her head!"

But Virginie Sambucco had already opened a little rosewood secretary.
Her unerring glance discovered in a file of papers, a sheet yellow with
age.

"I've got it!" said she with a cry of joy. "Marie Clementine Pichon,
legitimate daughter of August Pichon, hotel keeper, _rue des Merlettes_,
in this town of Nancy; married June 10th, 1814, to Joseph Langevin,
military sub-commissary. Is it surely she, Monsieur? Dare to say it
isn't she!"

"Well! But how do you happen to have my family papers?"

"Poor Clementine! And you accuse her of unfaithfulness! You do not
understand then that you had been taken for dead! That she supposed
herself a widow without having been a wife; that--"

"It's all right! It's all right! I forgive her. Where is she? I want to
see her, to embrace her, to tell her--"

"She is dead, Monsieur! She died three months after she was married,"

"Ah! The Devil!"

"In giving birth to a daughter--"

"Where is my daughter? I'd rather have had a son, but never mind! Where
is she? I want to see her, to embrace her, to tell her--"

"Alas! She is no more! But I can conduct you to her tomb."

"But how the Devil did you know her?"

"Because she married my brother!"

"Without my consent? But never mind! At least she left some children,
didn't she?"

"Only one."

"A son! He is my grandson!"

"A daughter."

"Never mind! She is my granddaughter! I'd rather have had a grandson,
but where is she? I want to see her, to embrace her, to tell her--"

"Embrace away, Monsieur! Her name is Clementine: after her grandmother,
and there she is!"

"She! That accounts for the resemblance! But then I can't marry her!
Never mind! Clementine! Come to my arms! Embrace your grandfather!"

The poor child had not been able entirely to comprehend this rapid
conversation, from which events had been falling like tiles, upon the