“That wouldn’t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the old man would have to say how much he gives her,” replied the notary.  “But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till the old man died.  Marriages are made and unmade.”

“The shortest way,” said Goupil, “if the doctor is likely to live much longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred thousand francs in hand.”

Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.

“He’d be a worm at the core,” whispered Zelie to Massin.

“How did he get here?” returned the clerk.

“That will just suit you!” cried Desire to Goupil.  “But do you think you can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?”

“In these days,” whispered Zelie again in Massin’s year, “notaries look out for no interests but their own.  Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula just to get the old man’s business?”

“I am sure of him,” said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out of his spiteful little eyes.  He was just going to add, “because I hold something over him,” but he withheld the words.

“I am quite of Dionis’s opinion,” he said aloud.

“So am I,” cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with the clerk.

“My wife has voted!” said the post master, sipping his brandy, though his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a notable quantity of liquids.

“And very properly,” remarked the collector.

“I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,” said Dionis.

“If Monsieur Dionis’s advice is good,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame Massin, “we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.”

“Yes, and be received as he received us!” cried Zelie.  “Minoret and I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our invitations!  We are quite his equals.  If I don’t know how to write prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he—­I can tell him that!”

“As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,” said Madame Massin, rather piqued, “I don’t want to lose ten thousand.”

“We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we shall see how things are going,” said Madame Cremiere; “you’ll thank us some day, cousin.”

“Treat Ursula kindly,” said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to the level of his lips; “remember old Jordy left her his savings.”

“You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in Paris, could have done,” said Goupil to his patron as they left the post-house.

“And now they are quarreling over my fee,” replied the notary, smiling bitterly.