to all his religious duties.  The nearer he came to the grave the more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and explained them more and more clearly to his mind.  Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle.  Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about Ursula’s future was far from quieted by the doctor’s half-confidence, boldly opened the subject one evening and showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legally of age.  Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of peace, would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula, though he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by majority.  The more Monsieur Bongrand persisted in his efforts to discover the means selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more wary the doctor became.

“Why not secure the thing,” said Bongrand, “why run any risks?”

“When you are between two risks,” replied the doctor, “avoid the most risky.”

Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty.  That anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and Massin.  Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests, the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere, together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which preceded the ball.

“I feel I am going,” said the old man to the notary towards the close of the evening.  “I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my death.  Thank God!  I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,—­I have disposed of nothing but my income.  Messieurs Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council appointed for Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering of my account.”

These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families, who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were disinherited.

When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; “To you, my friends, I confide her!  A few days more, and I shall be here no longer to protect her.  Put yourselves between her and the world until she is married,—­I fear for her.”

The words made a painful impression.  The guardian’s account, rendered a day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.