“Madame,” said the abbe, “why did you affront the excellent Monsieur Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son for his debts of honor?”

“Your Minoret is sly,” she said, taking a pinch of snuff.  “He knows what he is about.”

“My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by getting hold of our farm,” said Savinien; “as if a Portenduere, son of a Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will.”

An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor’s house, where all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity.  The arrival of the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its effect was different on each person present.  Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed.  The mothers said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage.  The eyes of all present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box, for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand.  The doctor’s cold manner surprised every one.

“Ursula, my child,” he said, “give us a little music.”

While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her in countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them, so eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and the Portendueres.

In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra.  In all music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great value.  Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin.  That fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt, and communicates itself through all species of music, even simple chords.  Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged to this rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came every Saturday and who, during Ursula’s stay in Paris was with her every day, had brought his pupil’s talent to its full perfection.  “Rousseau’s Dream,” the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold in his young days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of being developed by execution.  Ursula threw into it the feelings which were agitating her being, and justified the term “caprice” given by Herold to the fragment.  With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to the young man’s soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that were almost visible.