The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers were over.  As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de Portenduere on his arm.

“She dragged him to vespers, see!” cried Madame Massin to Madame Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the church.

“Let us go and speak to him,” said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old man.

The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference) did not escape Doctor Minoret.  He tried to guess the reason of this sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated affection and forced smiles.

“Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?” said Madame Cremiere.  “We feared sometimes we were in your way—­but it is such a long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are old enough now to make dear Ursula’s acquaintance.”

“Ursula is a little bear, like her name,” replied the doctor.

“Let us tame her,” said Madame Massin.  “And besides, uncle,” added the good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy, “they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very anxious to hear her.  Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her music-master for our children.  If there were six or eight scholars in a class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.”

“Certainly,” said the old man, “and it will be all the better for me because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.”

“Well, to-night then, uncle.  We will bring your great-nephew Desire to see you; he is now a lawyer.”

“Yes, to-night,” echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these petty souls.

The two nieces pressed Ursula’s hand, saying, with affected eagerness, “Au revoir.”

“Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!” cried Ursula, giving him a grateful look.

“You are going to have a voice,” he said; “and I shall give you masters of drawing and Italian also.  A woman,” added the doctor, looking at Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, “ought to be educated to the height of every position in which her marriage may place her.”

Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather’s thoughts evidently turned in the same direction as her own.  Feeling that she was too near confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him, she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a blue and white flower.

“Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes, they were very kind,” she repeated as he approached her, to change the thoughts that made him pensive.