t expect that from you. Poor Sarah! To think
that I could not spare her such a humiliation! But it is the last; and
this very morning, as soon as she wakes, she shall know that all is
ended. I have just sent for my daughter to tell her that the day for
the wedding is fixed. All the formalities are fulfilled. We have the
necessary papers"--

He paused, for Henrietta came in.

"You wish to speak to me, papa?" she said as she entered the room.

"Yes."

Greeting Daniel with a sweet glance of her eyes, Henrietta walked up to
the count, and offered him her forehead to kiss; but he pushed her back
rudely, and said, assuming an air of supreme solemnity,--

"I have sent for you, my daughter, to inform you that to-morrow
fortnight I shall marry Miss Brandon."

Henrietta must have been prepared for something of the kind, for she
did not move. She turned slightly pale; and a ray of wrath shot from her
eyes. The count went on,--

"Under these circumstances, it is not proper, it is hardly decent, that
you should not know her who is to be your mother hereafter. I shall
therefore present you to her this very day, in the afternoon."

The young girl shook her head gently, and then she said,--

"No!"

Count Ville-Handry had become very red. He exclaimed,--

"What! You dare! What would you say if I threatened to carry you
forcibly to Miss Brandon's house?"

"I, should say, father, that that is the only way to make me go there."

Her attitude was firm, though not defiant. She spoke in a calm, gentle
voice, but betrayed in every thing a resolution firmly formed, and not
to be shaken by any thing. The count seemed to be perfectly amazed at
this audacity shown by a girl who was usually so timid. He said,--

"Then you detest, you envy, this Miss Brandon?"

"I, father? Why should I? Great God! I only know that she cannot become
the Countess Ville-Handry,--she who has filled all Paris with evil
reports."

"Who has told you so? No doubt, M. Champcey."

"Everybody has told me, father."

"So, because she has been slandered, the poor girl"--

"I am willing to think she is innocent; but the Countess Ville-Handry
must not be a slandered woman."

She raised herself to her full height, and added in a higher voice,--

"You are master here, father; you can do as you choose. But I--I owe it
to myself and to the sacred memory of my mother, to protest by all the
means in my power; and I shall protest."

The count stammered and star