did you steal away my lover?" said she, leading Hortense into
the garden.

Hortense artlessly told the romance of her love. Her father and
mother, she said, being convinced that Lisbeth would never marry, had
authorized the Count's visits. Only Hortense, like a full-blown Agnes,
attributed to chance her purchase of the group and the introduction of
the artist, who, by her account, had insisted on knowing the name of
his first purchaser.

Presently Steinbock came out to join the cousins, and thanked the old
maid effusively for his prompt release. Lisbeth replied Jesuitically
that the creditor having given very vague promises, she had not hoped
to be able to get him out before the morrow, and that the person who
had lent her the money, ashamed, perhaps, of such mean conduct, had
been beforehand with her. The old maid appeared to be perfectly
content, and congratulated Wenceslas on his happiness.

"You bad boy!" said she, before Hortense and her mother, "if you had
only told me the evening before last that you loved my cousin
Hortense, and that she loved you, you would have spared me many tears.
I thought that you were deserting your old friend, your governess;
while, on the contrary, you are to become my cousin; henceforth, you
will be connected with me, remotely, it is true, but by ties that
amply justify the feelings I have for you." And she kissed Wenceslas
on the forehead.

Hortense threw herself into Lisbeth's arms and melted into tears.

"I owe my happiness to you," said she, "and I will never forget it."

"Cousin Betty," said the Baroness, embracing Lisbeth in her excitement
at seeing matters so happily settled, "the Baron and I owe you a debt
of gratitude, and we will pay it. Come and talk things over with me,"
she added, leading her away.

So Lisbeth, to all appearances, was playing the part of a good angel
to the whole family; she was adored by Crevel and Hulot, by Adeline
and Hortense.

"We wish you to give up working," said the Baroness. "If you earn
forty sous a day, Sundays excepted, that makes six hundred francs a
year. Well, then, how much have you saved?"

"Four thousand five hundred francs."

"Poor Betty!" said her cousin.

She raised her eyes to heaven, so deeply was she moved at the thought
of all the labor and privation such a sum must represent accumulated
during thirty years.

Lisbeth, misunderstanding the meaning of the exclamation, took it as
the ironical pity of the successful wo