r the happiness of at least sharing my father's love. God
knows, I would prefer sacrificing the whole, so that it would obtain me
a happy and affectionate home."

"Poor Valentine!"

"I seem to myself as though living a life of bondage, yet at the
same time am so conscious of my own weakness that I fear to break the
restraint in which I am held, lest I fall utterly helpless. Then, too,
my father is not a person whose orders may be infringed with impunity;
protected as he is by his high position and firmly established
reputation for talent and unswerving integrity, no one could oppose him;
he is all-powerful even with the king; he would crush you at a word.
Dear Maximilian, believe me when I assure you that if I do not attempt
to resist my father's commands it is more on your account than my own."

"But why, Valentine, do you persist in anticipating the worst,--why
picture so gloomy a future?"

"Because I judge it from the past."

"Still, consider that although I may not be, strictly speaking, what
is termed an illustrious match for you, I am, for many reasons,
not altogether so much beneath your alliance. The days when such
distinctions were so nicely weighed and considered no longer exist in
France, and the first families of the monarchy have intermarried with
those of the empire. The aristocracy of the lance has allied itself with
the nobility of the cannon. Now I belong to this last-named class; and
certainly my prospects of military preferment are most encouraging as
well as certain. My fortune, though small, is free and unfettered, and
the memory of my late father is respected in our country, Valentine, as
that of the most upright and honorable merchant of the city; I say our
country, because you were born not far from Marseilles."

"Don't speak of Marseilles, I beg of you, Maximilian; that one word
brings back my mother to my recollection--my angel mother, who died too
soon for myself and all who knew her; but who, after watching over her
child during the brief period allotted to her in this world, now, I
fondly hope, watches from her home in heaven. Oh, if my mother were
still living, there would be nothing to fear, Maximilian, for I would
tell her that I loved you, and she would protect us."

"I fear, Valentine," replied the lover, "that were she living I should
never have had the happiness of knowing you; you would then have been
too happy to have stooped from your grandeur to bestow a thought on me."