n on my face in the grass, and sobbed as if
my heart was breaking. How I vowed and swore that I would tear every
recollection of her from my mind, and never think more of her, and how
her image ever came back clearer and brighter and more beautiful before
me after each oath!

CHAPTER XXIII. THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED FOR OUR HOUSE

As I sat brooding over my fire that same evening, my door was suddenly
opened, and a large burly man, looming even larger from an immense fur
pelisse that he wore, entered. His first care was to divest himself of a
tall Astracan cap, from which he flung off some snow-flakes, and then
to throw off his pelisse, stamping the snow from his great boots, which
reached half-way up the thigh.

"You see," cried he, at last, with a jovial air,--"you see I come, like
a good comrade, and make myself at home at once."

"I certainly see so much," said I, dryly; "but whom have I the honor to
receive?"

"You have the honor to receive Gustave Maurice de Marsac, young man,
a gentleman of Dauphine, who now masquerades in the character of first
traveller for the respectable house of Hodnig and Oppovich."

"I am proud to make your acquaintance, M. de Marsac," said I, offering
my band.

"What age are you?" cried he, staring fixedly at me. "You can't be
twenty?"

"No, I am not twenty."

"And they purpose to send you down to replace _me!_" cried he; and he
threw himself back in his chair, and shook with laughter.

"I see all the presumption; but I can only say it was none of my doing."

"No, no; don't say presumption," said he, in a half-coaxing tone. "But
I may say it, without vanity, it is not every man's gift to be able to
succeed Gustave de Marsac. May I ask for a cigar? Thanks. A real Cuban,
I verily believe. I finished my tobacco two posts from this, and have
been smoking all the samples--pepper and hemp-seed amongst them--since
then."

"May I offer you something to eat?"

"You may, if you accompany it with something to drink. Would you believe
it, Oppovich and his daughter were at supper when I arrived to report
myself; and neither of them as much as said, Chevalier--I mean Mon. de
Marsac--won't you do us the honor to join us? No. Old Ignaz went on with
his meal,--cold veal and a potato salad, I think it was; and the fair
Sara examined my posting-book to see I had made no delay on the road;
but neither offered me even the courtesy of a glass of wine."

"I don't suspect it was from any want