she seated herself on one of the outer steps of the house, having La Bougival near her.

"Madame la Vicomtesse," said the curate, who first entered the little parlor, "Monsieur le Docteur Minoret has not been willing that you should trouble yourself to come to him."

I am too much of the old school, Madame," continued the doctor, "not to know what a man owes to a lady like yourself, and I am too happy, since Monsieur le Curé has informed me of your mishap, to be able to serve you in any manner.”

Madame de Portenduère, who, notwithstanding her reluctant concession, had, since the Abbé Chaperon's departure, nearly concluded to address herself rather to the notary of Nemours, was so much surprised by Minoret's delicacy, that she rose to answer his bow, and offered him an arm-chair.

"Be seated, sir," she said, with a queenly air. "Our dear curate will have told you that the Vicount is in prison for some youthful debts — 100,000 francs. If you could lend them to him, I would give you a mortgage on my farm des Bordières."

We can speak of that, Madame la Vicomtesse, when I shall have brought your son home to you, if, indeed, you permit me to be your intendant on this occasion."

"This is well, Monsieur le Docteur," replied the old lady, inclining her head and looking at the curate with an air that seemed to say, You are right, he is a man of good company.

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'My friend the doctor," then said the curate, “ Madame, full of devotion for your house."

'is, as you see,

We shall know how to be grateful, Monsieur," said Madame de Portenduère, visibly making an effort; "for at your age to adventure in Paris on the track of a heedless boy"

Madame, in '65 I had the honor to meet the illustrious Admiral de Portenduère with that excellent M. de Malesherbes, and at the house of Count Buffon, who desired some information of him on many curious facts of his voyages. It is not impossible that the late Monsieur de Portenduère, your husband, may have been there. The French navy was then glorious; it held its own with England, and the captain animated this game with his courage. How impatiently, in '83 and '84, we used to expect news from the camp of St. Roch! I was near starting myself as physician in the King's armies. Your great uncle, who is still alive, the Admiral Ker

garouet, then fought his famous battle, for he was on the Belle Poule."

"Ah! if he knew that his grand-son is in prison !"

'Monsieur le Vicomte will no longer be there two days hence," said old Minoret, rising. He extended his hand to take that of the old lady, who allowed him to do so; he pressed upon it a respectful kiss, bowed low, and went out; but turned back to say to the curate :

"Will you, my dear Abbé, take a place in the diligence for me for to-morrow morning?"

The curate remained half an hour longer chanting the praises of Dr. Minoret, who had intended to make a conquest of the old lady, and who had done it.

"He is astonishing for his age," said she; "he speaks of going to Paris and attending to my son's affairs, as though he were only twenty-five years old. He has seen good company!"

The best, Madame; and now more than one son of a peer of France would be happy to marry his niece with a million. Ah! if this idea passed through Savinien's heart, times are so changed that it is not on your side the greatest difficulties would lie, after

your son's conduct."

It was the profound amazement into which this last phrase threw the old lady, that enabled the curate to finish his sentence.

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You have lost your senses, my dear Abbé Chaperon."

"You will think on it, Madame, and God grant that your son may henceforth so conduct himself as to win this old man's esteem!'

"If it were not you, Monsieur le Curé-if it were any one else that spoke thus to me"

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You would never see him again," said the Abbé, smiling. "Let us hope that your dear son keeps you informed of what is going on in Paris, in the way of alliances. You will think of Savinien's happiness, and after having already compromised his future, you will not hinder him from making a position for himself."

"And it is you who tell me this!"

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'If I did not tell you, who is there that would?" exclaimed the priest, rising and making a prompt retreat.

The curate saw Ursula and her god-father walking up and down in the court. The doctor, whose weakness was equal to his strength

had been so much tormented by his god-daughter, that he had just yielded: she wanted to go to Paris- and assigned a thousand pretexts. He called the curate, who came, and asked him to take the whole coupé for him, if the diligence office was still open.

The next day, at half past six in the evening, the old man and the maiden arrived at Paris, where, that same evening, the doctor went to consult his notary.

The political horizon was lowering. The magistrate of Nemours had several times said to the doctor, that it was very rash to keep any money in Government stocks as long as the quarrel between the press and the Court remained unsettled. Minoret's notary approved the advice indirectly given by the magistrate. The doctor took the opportunity of this journey to realize his shares of stocks, which all stood high, and to deposit his capital at the Bank. The notary engaged his old client to sell also the funds left by Monsieur de Jordy to Ursula, and which he had invested to advantage, like a good father of a family. He promised to bring into the field a business agent, excessively astute, to treat with Savinien's creditors; but it was necessary, in order to succeed, that the young man should have the courage to remain still some days in prison.

"Precipitation in matters of this kind costs at least fifteen per cent.," said the notary to the doctor. "And, in the first place, you will not have your funds before seven or eight days."

When Ursula learned that Savinien would be still at least a week in prison, she besought her guardian to let her accompany him there one single time. Old Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were lodged in a hotel of the street Croix des Petits-Champs, where the doctor had taken a suitable apartment; and knowing his pupil's religious truthfulness, he made her promise not to go out when he should be abroad on business. The good man took Ursula to walk in Paris, through the boulevards, the passages, the palaces; but nothing amused or interested her.

"What do you wish, then ?" asked the old man.

"To see Sainte-Pèlagie," she replied, persistently.

Minoret then took a hack as far as the Rue de la Clefs, where the carriage stopped before the mean looking front of that once convent, then transformed into a prison. The sight of those high, gray walls, all whose windows are barred, of that wicket which we only can enter by stooping-sinister lesson! that sombre mass in

a quarter full of miseries, and where it rises, surrounded with desert streets like a supreme misery,—this sad whole seized on Ursula, and wrung some tears from her.

How," said she, "do they imprison young persons for money? Can a debt give to a usurer a power that the King does not possess? He is then there," she cried; " and where, my god-father? she added, looking from window to window.

"Ursula,' ," said the old man, "you make me commit follies. Is this forgetting him, then?"

"But," replied she, "if I must renounce him, must I also show no interest in him? I can love him, and not marry any one." "Ah!" cried the good man, "there is so much reason in your folly that I repent of having brought you here."

Three days afterwards the old man had the receipts regulated, and all the documents establishing Savinien's liberation. This liquidation, comprising the commission paid to the business agent, had been effected for a sum of eighty thousand francs. There remained to the doctor eight hundred thousand francs, which his notary advised him to place them in treasury bonds, so as not to lose too much interest. He kept twenty thousand francs in bank bills for Savinien. The doctor went himself to unbar the prison door Saturday, at two o'clock, and the young Vicount, already instructed by a letter from his mother, thanked his liberator with a sincere effusion of heart.

"You should not delay to come and see your mother, Minoret to him.

"said old

Savinien replied with a sort of confusion, that he had contracted a debt of honor in his prison, and related the visit of his friends. "I suspected you of some privileged debt," exclaimed the doctor, smiling. Your mother borrows a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid only eighty thousand here is the rest. Economize it well, Monsieur, and consider what you keep of it as your stake on the green cloth of Fortune."

During the last eight days, Savinien had made reflections upon the actual epoch. Competition in every thing requires great exertions from him who seeks a fortune. Illegal means demand more talent and subterranean practices than a quest in open daylight. Successes in the gallant world, far from giving a position, consume time and require an immense amount of money. The name of Portenduère, which his mother told him was all-powerful, was

of

nothing at Paris. His cousin, the deputy, the Count de Portenduère, made a small figure in the elective chamber, in presence the peerage of the Court, and had no more credit than he needed for himself. The Admiral de Kergarouet would have been nothing without his wife. He had seen orators, persons from the social plane, inferior to the nobility, and other small gentry become very influential personages. In short, money was the pivot, the only means, the sole moving-spring of a society which Louis XVIII. had wished to make like that of England. From the street de la Clef to the street Croix des Petits-Champs, the gentleman developed the conclusions at which he had arrived, in harmony moreover with the counsel of De Marsay to the old physician. "I ought," said he, "to let myself be forgotten during three or four years, and to seek a career. Perhaps I may make a name by a book of political economy, moral statistics, by some treatise on one of the great actual questions. While aiming at a marriage with a young person who shall realize for me the conditions of eligibility, I will work in the shade and in silence."

In studying this young man's countenance, the doctor recognized there the gravity of a wounded combatant who watches his revenge. He much approved this plan.

"My neighbor," said he, finally, "if you have sloughed the skin of the old nobility, which is no longer the fashion of the day, after three or four years of wise and well-applied exertion, I undertake to find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and with a fortune of seven or eight hundred thousand francs, who will render you happy, and of whom you shall be proud, but who will be noble only by the heart."

"Ah! doctor," cried the young man, "there is no longer nobility there is only an aristocracy."

"Go, pay your debts of honor, and return here; I am going to take the inside of the diligence, for my pupil is with me," said the old man.

That evening at six, the three travelers left by the Ducler* of the

* On the great roads of France, fantastic names are given to the diligences; they say, la Caillard la Ducler, (the stage-coach between Nemours and Paris,) le Grand Bureau. "Caillard has not caught up with the Countess, but le Grand Bureau has singed her robe well, all the same! La Caillard and le Grand Bureau have run les Francaises into the ground." Every new enterprise is called La Concurrence. If you see the postillion crashing along, and refusing