he is!"

* * * * *

Renee was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer,
who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and
fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
_bourgeois_, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar
refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.

The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too
"grown-up" before they were children, but in Renee, who was born after
an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His
heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet
of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was
now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and
determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation
by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder
sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position
allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided
mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which
filled the days of the moneyed Paris _bourgeoisie_ of that time.

Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
an equally suitable partner for Renee; but the high-spirited girl had a
will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible
young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it
without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with
similar intentions, and Renee was no more amenable than before. While
her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her
accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did
her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues
that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She
made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally
proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.

Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardi