hearts by a touch of their waving palms.  But although she trained herself, through a premature perception of duty, to hide her personal grief, it was none the less bitter; her calm exterior was not in keeping with the deep trouble of her thoughts, and she was destined to undergo, too early in life, those terrible outbursts of feeling which no heart is wholly able to subdue:  her father was to hold her incessantly under the pressure of natural youthful generosity on the one hand, and the dictates of imperious duty on the other.  The cares which came upon her the very day of her mother’s death threw her into a struggle with the interests of life at an age when young girls are thinking only of its pleasures.  Dreadful discipline of suffering, which is never lacking to angelic natures!

The love which rests on money or on vanity is the most persevering of passions.  Pierquin resolved to win the heiress without delay.  A few days after Madame Claes’s death he took occasion to speak to Marguerite, and began operations with a cleverness which might have succeeded if love had not given her the power of clear insight and saved her from mistaking appearances that were all the more specious because Pierquin displayed his natural kindheartedness,—­the kindliness of a notary who thinks himself loving while he protects a client’s money.  Relying on his rather distant relationship and his constant habit of managing the business and sharing the secrets of the Claes family, sure of the esteem and friendship of the father, greatly assisted by the careless inattention of that servant of science who took no thought for the marriage of his daughter, and not suspecting that Marguerite could prefer another,—­Pierquin unguardedly enabled her to form a judgment on a suit in which there was no passion except that of self-interest, always odious to a young soul, and which he was not clever enough to conceal.  It was he who on this occasion was naively above-board, it was she who dissimulated,—­simply because he thought he was dealing with a defenceless girl, and wholly misconceived the privileges of weakness.

“My dear cousin,” he said to Marguerite, with whom he was walking about the paths of the little garden, “you know my heart, you understand how truly I desire to respect the painful feelings which absorb you at this moment.  I have too sensitive a nature for a lawyer; I live by my heart only, I am forced to spend my time on the interests of others when I would fain let myself enjoy the sweet emotions which make life happy.  I suffer deeply in being obliged to talk to you of subjects so discordant with your state of mind, but it is necessary.  I have thought much about you during the last few days.  It is evident that through a fatal delusion the fortune of your brothers and sister and your own are in jeopardy.  Do you wish to save your family from complete ruin?”

“What must I do?” she asked, half-frightened by his words.

“Marry,” answered Pierquin.