ent out, with a raging
soul, determined to venture all.

"Go to your room, miss!" said Madame Guillaume, on their return home;
"we will send for you, but take care not to quit it."

The conference between the husband and wife was conducted so secretly
that at first nothing was heard of it. Virginie, however, who had tried
to give her sister courage by a variety of gentle remonstrances, carried
her good nature so far as to listen at the door of her mother's bedroom
where the discussion was held, to catch a word or two. The first time
she went down to the lower floor she heard her father exclaim, "Then,
madame, do you wish to kill your daughter?"

"My poor dear!" said Virginie, in tears, "papa takes your part."

"And what do they want to do to Theodore?" asked the innocent girl.

Virginie, inquisitive, went down again; but this time she stayed longer;
she learned that Joseph Lebas loved Augustine. It was written that on
this memorable day, this house, generally so peaceful, should be a hell.
Monsieur Guillaume brought Joseph Lebas to despair by telling him of
Augustine's love for a stranger. Lebas, who had advised his friend to
become a suitor for Mademoiselle Virginie, saw all his hopes wrecked.
Mademoiselle Virginie, overcome by hearing that Joseph had, in a way,
refused her, had a sick headache. The dispute that had arisen from the
discussion between Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, when, for the third
time in their lives, they had been of antagonistic opinions, had shown
itself in a terrible form. Finally, at half-past four in the afternoon,
Augustine, pale, trembling, and with red eyes, was haled before her
father and mother. The poor child artlessly related the too brief tale
of her love. Reassured by a speech from her father, who promised to
listen to her in silence, she gathered courage as she pronounced to her
parents the name of Theodore de Sommervieux, with a mischievous little
emphasis on the aristocratic _de_. And yielding to the unknown charm of
talking of her feelings, she was brave enough to declare with innocent
decision that she loved Monsieur de Sommervieux, that she had written to
him, and she added, with tears in her eyes: "To sacrifice me to another
man would make me wretched."

"But, Augustine, you cannot surely know what a painter is?" cried her
mother with horror.

"Madame Guillaume!" said the old man, compelling her to
silence.--"Augustine," he went on, "artists are generally little better