looking--that young man," said she in a whisper to
Hortense.

"Oh, do you think so?" she replied. "I never noticed him."

"Stidmann, my good fellow," said Wenceslas, in an undertone to his
friend, "we are on no ceremony, you and I--we have some business to
settle with this old girl."

Stidmann bowed to the ladies and went away.

"It is settled," said Wenceslas, when he came in from taking leave of
Stidmann. "But there are six months' work to be done, and we must live
meanwhile."

"There are my diamonds," cried the young Countess, with the impetuous
heroism of a loving woman.

A tear rose in Wenceslas' eye.

"Oh, I am going to work," said he, sitting down by his wife and
drawing her on to his knee. "I will do odd jobs--a wedding chest,
bronze groups----"

"But, my children," said Lisbeth; "for, as you know, you will be my
heirs, and I shall leave you a very comfortable sum, believe me,
especially if you help me to marry the Marshal; nay, if we succeed in
that quickly, I will take you all to board with me--you and Adeline.
We should live very happily together.--But for the moment, listen to
the voice of my long experience. Do not fly to the Mont-de-Piete; it
is the ruin of the borrower. I have always found that when the
interest was due, those who had pledged their things had nothing
wherewith to pay up, and then all is lost. I can get you a loan at
five per cent on your note of hand."

"Oh, we are saved!" said Hortense.

"Well, then, child, Wenceslas had better come with me to see the
lender, who will oblige him at my request. It is Madame Marneffe. If
you flatter her a little--for she is as vain as a _parvenue_--she will
get you out of the scrape in the most obliging way. Come yourself and
see her, my dear Hortense."

Hortense looked at her husband with the expression a man condemned to
death must wear on his way to the scaffold.

"Claude Vignon took Stidmann there," said Wenceslas. "He says it is a
very pleasant house."

Hortense's head fell. What she felt can only be expressed in one word;
it was not pain; it was illness.

"But, my dear Hortense, you must learn something of life!" exclaimed
Lisbeth, understanding the eloquence of her cousin's looks.
"Otherwise, like your mother, you will find yourself abandoned in a
deserted room, where you will weep like Calypso on the departure of
Ulysses, and at an age when there is no hope of Telemachus--" she
added, repeating a jest of Madame Marneffe's. "We h