Ursula

of him; he saw in Ursula the woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words, "Seven or eight hundred thousand francs."
    "In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be twenty-seven," he thought. "The good doctor talked of probation, work, good conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth."
    The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave Ursula a parting glance.
    Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass. Savinien's release and his return in company with the doctor had explained the reason of the latter's absence to the newsmongers of the town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to dinner that evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the abbe would be the only other guest.
    "He must have wished Ursula to see Paris," said Minoret-Levrault.
    "Pest!" cried Cremiere; "he can't take a step without that girl!"
    "Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm," said Massin.
    "So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and released that little Savinien?" cried Goupil. "He refused Dionis, but he didn't refuse Madame de Portenduere—Ha, ha! you are all done for. The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he has now paid to secure the alliance."
    "It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien," said the butcher. "The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came early for a filet."
    "Well, Dionis, here's a fine to-do!" said Massin, rushing up to the notary, who was entering the square.
    "What is? It's all going right," returned the notary. "Your uncle has sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs, lent to her by your uncle."
    "Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?"
    "That's as if you said Goupil was to be my successor."
    "The two things are not so impossible," said Goupil.
    On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform her son that she wished to see him.
    The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the court. Madame de Portenduere's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at the end of the court, so that this salon was made to answer the double purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
    The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed, hung above a crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold head was where he had last placed it, with