Ursula

nervous attack."
    "Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.
    Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,—the only sure means by which the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his son to Ursula.
    "If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her," replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and infatuated with her noble blood."
    "Luckily—I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the notary, on the point of betraying himself.
    Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.
    "I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought. "But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere—if she really loves him."
    The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
    "What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without your smiles what would become of me?"
    "Savinien in prison!" she said.
    With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to sob.
    "Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart, applying his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added, looking at her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed between you."
    "I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other," she answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that you—harshly—refused to get him out—you, so good!"
    "Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little love-affair."
    Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence between them.
    "Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been."
    "No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and I did not see any difference between him and—all of you—except perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else. Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother's fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the windows in Monsieur Savinien's room open; and Monsieur Savinien was there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements there was such grace—I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white throat—so round!—must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when I watch you arranging your beard. There came—I don't know how—a sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so violently that I sat down—I couldn't stand, I trembled so. But I longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and—"
    "And?"
    "And then," she continued, "I hid myself—I was ashamed, but happy—why should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling—it dazzled my soul and gave it some power, but I don't know what—it came again