ted her to
the crowd, then kissed her tenderly.

Then a deafening cheer rang out. It was continued for several minutes.
Cheers came from the mouths of seven thousand men, women and children.
Then, as the Order of the Day had been previously arranged, a line was
formed and in single file they passed before their old chief and his
granddaughter. With a bow and a hearty wish each man passed by.

"Ah, grandpapa, if you could only see their kind faces!" cried Perrine.

But there were some faces that were not exactly radiant. The two nephews
certainly looked very glum when, after the ceremony, they came up to
their cousin to offer their congratulations.

"As for me," said Talouel, who did not mean to lose any time in paying
court to the young heiress, "I had always supposed...."

The excitement of the day proved too much for M. Vulfran. The doctor was
called in.

"You can understand, doctor," said the blind man anxiously, "how much I
want to see my little granddaughter. You must get me into a state so
that I can have this operation."

"That is just it," said the doctor cheerily, "you must not have all this
excitement. You must be perfectly calm. Now that this beautiful weather
has come, you must go out, but you must keep quiet, and I guarantee that
as soon as your cough has gone we shall be able to have a successful
operation."

And the doctor's words came true. A month after M. Vulfran's birthday
two specialists came down from Paris to perform the operation.

When they wished to put him under an anesthetic he refused.

"If my granddaughter will have the courage to hold my hand," he said,
"you will see that I will be brave. Is it very painful?"

They would use cocaine to alleviate the pain.

The operation was over. Then came five or six days of waiting. The
patient was kept in a dark room. Then at last the grandfather was
allowed to see his little granddaughter.

"Ah, if I had only had my eyes," he cried as he gazed at Perrine's
beautiful little face, "I should have recognized her at the first
glance. What fools! Couldn't anyone have seen the likeness to her
father? This time Talouel would have been right if he had said that he
'supposed'...."

They did not let him use his eyes for long. Again the bandage was put on
and was kept on for thirty days. Then one of the oculists who had
remained at the chateau went up to Paris to select the glasses which
would enable him to read and see at a distance.

What M. Vu