for me to fulfil a scheme I had
for a thoroughly suitable and happy arrangement of your destiny. It
was a plan that would have taken time, and which I had hoped to put
in the way of gradual accomplishment at this ball. However, we must
not grumble at fate--it is not to be. The doctor tells me I cannot
possibly live more than a few weeks, therefore it follows that
something must be settled immediately to secure you a future. You
are not aware, as I have not considered it necessary to inform you
hitherto of my affairs, that all we are living on is an annuity your
father bought for me, before the catastrophe to his fortunes. That,
you will understand, ceases with my life. At my death you will be
absolutely penniless, a beggar in the street. Even were you to
sell these trifles"--and she pointed to the Sevres cups and the
miniatures--"the few pounds they would bring might keep you from
starving for perhaps a month or two--after that--well, enough--that
question is impossible. I can obtain no news of your father. I have
heard nothing from or of him for two years. He may be dead--we cannot
count on him. In short, I have decided, after due consideration and
consultation with my old friend the Marquis, that you must marry
Augustus Gurrage. It is my dying wish."

My eyes fell from grandmamma's face and happened to light on the
picture of Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt. There she was, with the
rose in her dress, smiling at me out of the old paste frame. I was so
stunned, all I could think of was to wonder if it was the same rose
she walked up the guillotine steps with. I did not hear grandmamma
speaking; for a minute there was a buzzing in my ears.

_Marry Augustus Gurrage!_

"My child"--grandmamma's voice was rather sharper--"I am aware that
it is a _mesalliance_, a stain, a finish to our fine race, and if I
could take you on the journey I am going I would not suggest this
alternative to you; but one must have common-sense and be practical;
and as you are young and must live, and cannot beg, this is the only
certain and possible solution of the matter. The great honor you will
do him by marrying him removes all sense of obligation in receiving
the riches he will bestow on you--you yourself being without a _dot_.
Child--why don't you answer?"

I got up and walked to the window. She had said I was a true daughter
of the race. Would it be of the race to kill myself? No--there is
nothing so vulgar as to be dramatic. Grandmamm