are inexhaustible."

A eulogy on the president, Count Ville-Handry, crowned the whole
work,--a very clever eulogy, which called him a man sent by Providence;
and, alluding to his colossal fortune, suggested that, with such a
manager at the head of the enterprise, the shareholders could not
possibly run any risk.

Henrietta was overwhelmed with surprise. "Ah!" she said to herself,
"this is what Sarah Brandon and her accomplices were aiming at. My
father is ruined!"

That Count Ville-Handry should risk all he possessed in this terrible
game of speculation was not so surprising to Henrietta. But what
she could not comprehend was this, that he should assume the whole
responsibility of such a hazardous enterprise, and run the terrible
risk of a failure. How could he, with his deeply-rooted aristocratic
prejudices, ever consent to lend his name to an industrial enterprise?

"It must have cost prodigies of patience and cunning," she thought,
"to induce him to make such a sacrifice, such a surrender of old and
cherished convictions. They must have worried him terribly, and brought
to bear upon him a fearful pressure."

She was, therefore, truly amazed, when, two days afterwards, she became
accidentally a witness to a lively discussion between her father and
the countess on this very subject of the famous placards, which were
now scattered all over Paris and France. The countess seemed to be
distressed by the whole affair, and presented to her husband all the
objections which Henrietta herself would have liked to have urged;
only she did it with all the authority she derived from the count's
passionate love for her. She did not understand, she said, how her
husband, a nobleman of ancient lineage, could stoop to "making money."
Had he not enough of it already? Would he be any happier if he had twice
or thrice as many thousands a year?

He met all these objections with a sweetish smile, like a great artist
who hears an ignoramus criticise his work. And, when the countess
paused, he deigned to explain to her in that emphatic manner which
betrayed his intense conceit, that if he, the representative of the very
oldest nobility, threw himself into the great movement, it was for the
purpose of setting a lofty example. He had no desire for "filthy lucre,"
he assured her; he only desired to render his country a great service.

"Too dangerous a service!" replied the countess. "If you succeed, as you
hope, who will thank you for it