aw it transfigured and free from care. The buzz
of the aristocratic world grew more and more remote; and when at length
they came upon the paved road of L'Houmeau, the ambitious poet grasped
his brother's hand, and made a third in the joy of the happy lovers.

"If only your father makes no objection to the marriage," he said.

"You know how much he troubles himself about me; the old man lives for
himself," said David. "But I will go over to Marsac to-morrow and see
him, if it is only to ask leave to build."

David went back to the house with the brother and sister, and asked Mme.
Chardon's consent to his marriage with the eagerness of a man who would
fain have no delay. Eve's mother took her daughter's hand, and gladly
laid it in David's; and the lover, grown bolder on this, kissed his fair
betrothed on the forehead, and she flushed red, and smiled at him.

"The betrothal of the poor," the mother said, raising her eyes as if
to pray for heaven's blessing upon them.--"You are brave, my boy," she
added, looking at David, "but we have fallen on evil fortune, and I am
afraid lest our bad luck should be infectious."

"We shall be rich and happy," David said earnestly. "To begin with, you
must not go out nursing any more, and you must come and live with your
daughter and Lucien in Angouleme."

The three began at once to tell the astonished mother all their charming
plans, and the family party gave themselves up to the pleasure of
chatting and weaving a romance, in which it is so pleasant to enjoy
future happiness, and to store the unsown harvest. They had to put David
out at the door; he could have wished the evening to last for ever,
and it was one o'clock in the morning when Lucien and his future
brother-in-law reached the Palet Gate. The unwonted movement made honest
Postel uneasy; he opened the window, and looking through the Venetian
shutters, he saw a light in Eve's room.

"What can be happening at the Chardons'?" thought he, and seeing Lucien
come in, he called out to him--

"What is the matter, sonny? Do you want me to do anything?"

"No, sir," returned the poet; "but as you are our friend, I can tell you
about it; my mother has just given her consent to my sister's engagement
to David Sechard."

For all answer, Postel shut the window with a bang, in despair that he
had not asked for Mlle. Chardon earlier.

David, however, did not go back into Angouleme; he took the road to
Marsac instead, and walked throu