“Mademoiselle Felicie,” said the elder, with her lips at her sister’s ear.  “I read your soul.  Pierquin has been here often in my absence, and he has said sweet words to you, and you have listened to them.”  Felicie blushed.  “Don’t defend yourself, my angel,” continued Marguerite, “it is so natural to love!  Perhaps your dear nature will improve his; he is egotistical and self-interested, but for all that he is a good man, and his defects may even add to your happiness.  He will love you as the best of his possessions; you will be a part of his business affairs.  Forgive me this one word, dear love; you will soon correct the bad habit he has acquired of seeing money in everything, by teaching him the business of the heart.”

Felicie could only kiss her sister.

“Besides,” added Marguerite, “he has property; and his family belongs to the highest and the oldest bourgeoisie.  But you don’t think I would oppose your happiness even if the conditions were less prosperous, do you?”

Felicie let fall the words, “Dear sister.”

“Yes, you may confide in me,” cried Marguerite, “sisters can surely tell each other their secrets.”

These words, so full of heartiness, opened the way to one of those delightful conversations in which young girls tell all.  When Marguerite, expert in love, reached an understanding of the real state of Felicie’s heart, she wound up their talk by saying:—­

“Well, dear child, let us make sure he truly loves you, and—­then—­”

“Ah!” cried Felicie, laughing, “leave me to my own devices; I have a model before my eyes.”

“Saucy child!” exclaimed Marguerite, kissing her.

Though Pierquin belonged to the class of men who regard marriage as the accomplishment of a social duty and the means of transmitting property, and though he was indifferent to which sister he should marry so long as both had the same name and the same dower, he did perceive that the two were, to use his own expression, “romantic and sentimental girls,” adjectives employed by commonplace people to ridicule the gifts which Nature sows with grudging hand along the furrows of humanity.  The lawyer no doubt said to himself that he had better swim with the stream; and accordingly the next day he came to see Marguerite, and took her mysteriously into the little garden, where he began to talk sentiment,—­that being one of the clauses of the primal contract which, according to social usage, must precede the notarial contract.

“Dear cousin,” he said, “you and I have not always been of one mind as to the best means of bringing your affairs to a happy conclusion; but you do now, I am sure, admit that I have always been guided by a great desire to be useful to you.  Well, yesterday I spoiled my offer by a fatal habit which the legal profession forces upon us—­you understand me?  My heart did not share in the folly.  I have loved you well; but I have a certain perspicacity, legal perhaps, which obliges me to see