n can think of; but he cannot leave a girl--his nearest relation
save you--his betrothed, is she not?'

"'His betrothed!' cried she, now at the utmost pitch of her excitement.
'Virginie betrothed to Clement?--no! thank heaven, not so bad as that!
Yet it might have been. But mademoiselle scorned my son! She would have
nothing to do with him. Now is the time for him to have nothing to do
with her!"

"Clement had entered at the door behind his mother as she thus spoke. His
face was set and pale, till it looked as gray and immovable as if it had
been carved in stone. He came forward and stood before his mother. She
stopped her walk, threw back her haughty head, and the two looked each
other steadily in the face. After a minute or two in this attitude, her
proud and resolute gaze never flinching or wavering, he went down upon
one knee, and, taking her hand--her hard, stony hand, which never closed
on his, but remained straight and stiff:

"'Mother,' he pleaded, 'withdraw your prohibition. Let me go!'

"'What were her words?' Madame de Crequy replied, slowly, as if forcing
her memory to the extreme of accuracy. 'My cousin,' she said, 'when I
marry, I marry a man, not a petit-maitre. I marry a man who, whatever
his rank may be will add dignity to the human race by his virtues, and
not be content to live in an effeminate court on the traditions of past
grandeur.' She borrowed her words from the infamous Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, the friend of her scarce less infamous father--nay! I will say
it,--if not her words, she borrowed her principles. And my son to
request her to marry him!'

"'It was my father's written wish,' said Clement.

"'But did you not love her? You plead your father's words,--words
written twelve years before,--and as if that were your reason for being
indifferent to my dislike to the alliance. But you requested her to
marry you,--and she refused you with insolent contempt; and now you are
ready to leave me,--leave me desolate in a foreign land--'

"'Desolate! my mother! and the Countess Ludlow stands there!'

"'Pardon, madame! But all the earth, though it were full of kind hearts,
is but a desolation and a desert place to a mother when her only child is
absent. And you, Clement, would leave me for this Virginie,--this
degenerate De Crequy, tainted with the atheism of the Encyclopedistes!
She is only reaping some of the fruit of the harvest whereof her friends
have sown the seed. Let her a