experienced old woman returned to inform Paul
of the results of the overture.

"My child," she said, "the affair is won. In talking of property, I
found that Madame Evangelista gives nothing of her own to her daughter.
Mademoiselle Natalie's dowry is her patrimony. Marry her, my dear boy.
Men who have a name and an estate to transmit, a family to continue,
must, sooner or later, end in marriage. I wish I could see my dear
Auguste taking that course. You can now carry on the marriage without
me; I have nothing to give you but my blessing, and women as old as I
are out of place at a wedding. I leave for Paris to-morrow. When you
present your wife in society I shall be able to see her and assist her
far more to the purpose than now. If you had had no house in Paris I
would gladly have arranged the second floor of mine for you."

"Dear aunt," said Paul, "I thank you heartily. But what do you mean
when you say that the mother gives nothing of her own, and that the
daughter's dowry is her patrimony?"

"The mother, my dear boy, is a sly cat, who takes advantage of her
daughter's beauty to impose conditions and allow you only that which she
cannot prevent you from having; namely, the daughter's fortune from her
father. We old people know the importance of inquiring closely, What has
he? What has she? I advise you therefore to give particular instructions
to your notary. The marriage contract, my dear child, is the most sacred
of all duties. If your father and your mother had not made their
bed properly you might now be sleeping without sheets. You will have
children, they are the commonest result of marriage, and you must think
of them. Consult Maitre Mathias our old notary."

Madame de Maulincour departed, having plunged Paul into a state of
extreme perplexity. His mother-in-law a sly cat! Must he struggle for
his interests in the marriage contract? Was it necessary to defend them?
Who was likely to attack them?

He followed the advice of his aunt and confided the drawing-up of the
marriage contract to Maitre Mathias. But these threatened discussions
oppressed him, and he went to see Madame Evangelista and announce his
intentions in a state of rather lively agitation. Like all timid men, he
shrank from allowing the distrust his aunt had put into his mind to be
seen; in fact, he considered it insulting. To avoid even a slight jar
with a person so imposing to his mind as his future mother-in-law, he
proceeded to state his