before her mother's eyes, on the forehead, and
so reverently, that the Baroness could not be angry. It was a better
restorative than any smelling salts. Hortense opened her eyes, saw
Wenceslas, and her color came back. In a few minutes she had quite
recovered.

"So this was your secret?" said Lisbeth, smiling at Wenceslas, and
affecting to guess the facts from her two cousins' confusion.

"But how 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 hund