compensation for her absence, or quickly marry her, and
I will provide her with a dower."

"Now you are indeed a generous gentleman," said the advocate,
smiling; "You must have built churches, surely, or founded hospitals,
and always have dealt out dollars liberally to the deserving. But
you are wealthy, and can do these things without being impoverished.
It is fortunate that you are wealthy, for I shall accept of no
paltry sum. Only imagine, to have to banish her; to quench, or to
remove, the very beam that fills my life with light. You must be
liberal, if you would have me exile her Come, sign me a bond for
what I shall demand."

"You are in haste," observed the seigneur, somewhat startled at
the advocate catching so readily at the bait; but the latter was
ready with his reply:

"Because your son may now be at Stillyside, and, whilst we are
haggling, may carry off my ward,--or I might change my mind," he
answered.

"And I, too, may change mine," was the rejoinder.

"Why, then, we are quits;" observed the advocate carelessly, and
as if all parley were at an end; "we are as we were, and, for the
young ones, they are as they were; but if I know the force of
youthful blood, you, with all your endeavours, will not be able
long to keep them apart."

"What is your price for her expatriation?" demanded the seigneur
sullenly, as if coming to terms; and the advocate replied:

"No, marry her, marry her; we will have her married. We either
marry her or do nothing in this business, sir, which, after all,
were, perhaps, best left to those who have most interest in it;--but
if you think differently, be it yours to find the money, I will
find the match:--and let it be understood, that you find her a
dowry which would be fitting for a seigneur's daughter; or else,
without a dowry, I shall not scruple to give her to a seigneur's
son. Why are you silent?"

The proud, perplexed parent made no answer, but secretly groaned
in his dilemma, and at length exclaimed: "Insatiate old man, have
you no son, the thought of which may teach you to be just towards
me and mine? What do I ask of you? Little,--or what would cost you
little, yet you ask a fortune of me; and to enrich, too, one, whom,
as a punishment, I have reason rather to desire should always be
poor. Do not deny it; she has ensnared my son. It is impossible,
that he who has roamed over half the world, and has yet come home
uncaptivated, though in his travels he has met the