an
with a delicate black mustache, and extremely well dressed, even turned
to his neighbor, and asked,--

"Who is our friend, the preacher?"

"What! don't you know him?" replied the other.

"That is the Duke of Champdoce, you know, who has married a princess of
Mussidan. Quite an original."

M. de Brevan, however, had remained perfectly impassive, and now said,--

"At all events, I suppose it was not altogether a question of interest
which made Miss Brandon marry the count."

"Why not?"

"Because she is immensely rich."

"Pshaw!"

An old gentleman came up, and said,--

"She must needs be perfectly disinterested; for I have it from the count
himself that none of the property is to be settled upon Miss Brandon."

"That certainly is marvellously disinterested."

Having said what he meant to say, the duke had entered the church; and
the old beau now took the word.

"The only thing that is clear to me in this matter is, that I think I
know the person whom this wedding will not please particularly."

"Whom do you mean?"

"Count Ville-Handry's daughter, a young girl, eighteen years old, and
wondrously pretty. Just imagine! Besides, I have looked for her all over
the church, and she is not there."

"She is not present at the wedding," replied the old gentleman, the
friend of Count Ville-Handry, "because she was suddenly taken ill."

"So they say," interposed the young man; "but the fact is, that a friend
of mine has just seen her driving out in her carriage in full dress."

"That can hardly be so."

"My friend was positive. She intended this pretty piece of scandal as a
wedding-present for her stepmother."

M. de Brevan shrugged his shoulders, and said in an undertone,--

"Upon my word, I should not like to stand in the count's shoes."

As a faithful echo of the gossip that was going on in society, this
conversation, carried on in broken sentences, under the porch of St.
Clothilda, made it quite clear that public opinion was decidedly in
favor of Miss Brandon. It would have been surprising if it should have
been otherwise. She triumphed; and the world is always on the side of
the victor. That Duke of Champdoce, an original, was the only one there
who was disposed to remember the past; the others had forgotten it. The
brilliancy of her success was even reflected on those who belonged to
her; and a young man who copied to exaggeration English fashions was
just singing the praises of M. Thomas Elgin and