“Good-day, cousin; so now you are to be called Thorec, I suppose?  Send none but commissionaires if you need me, and always take them from different parts.”

“Trust me!  Oh, I am really very lucky!” said the Baron, his face beaming with the prospect of new and future happiness.

“No one can find him there,” said Lisbeth; and she paid the coach at the Boulevard Beaumarchais, and returned to the Rue Louis-le-Grand in the omnibus.

On the following day Crevel was announced at the hour when all the family were together in the drawing-room, just after breakfast.  Celestine flew to throw her arms round her father’s neck, and behaved as if she had seen him only the day before, though in fact he had not called there for more than two years.

“Good-morning, father,” said Victorin, offering his hand.

“Good-morning, children,” said the pompous Crevel.  “Madame la Baronne, I throw myself at your feet!  Good Heavens, how the children grow! they are pushing us off the perch—­’Grand-pa,’ they say, ’we want our turn in the sunshine.’—­Madame la Comtesse, you are as lovely as ever,” he went on, addressing Hortense.—­“Ah, ha! and here is the best of good money:  Cousin Betty, the Wise Virgin.”

“Why, you are really very comfortable here,” said he, after scattering these greetings with a cackle of loud laughter that hardly moved the rubicund muscles of his broad face.

He looked at his daughter with some contempt.

“My dear Celestine, I will make you a present of all my furniture out of the Rue des Saussayes; it will just do here.  Your drawing-room wants furnishing up.—­Ha! there is that little rogue Wenceslas.  Well, and are we very good children, I wonder?  You must have pretty manners, you know.”

“To make up for those who have none,” said Lisbeth.

“That sarcasm, my dear Lisbeth, has lost its sting.  I am going, my dear children, to put an end to the false position in which I have so long been placed; I have come, like a good father, to announce my approaching marriage without any circumlocution.”

“You have a perfect right to marry,” said Victorin.  “And for my part, I give you back the promise you made me when you gave me the hand of my dear Celestine—­”

“What promise?” said Crevel.

“Not to marry,” replied the lawyer.  “You will do me the justice to allow that I did not ask you to pledge yourself, that you gave your word quite voluntarily and in spite of my desire, for I pointed out to you at the time that you were unwise to bind yourself.”

“Yes, I do remember, my dear fellow,” said Crevel, ashamed of himself.  “But, on my honor, if you will but live with Madame Crevel, my children, you will find no reason to repent.—­Your good feeling touches me, Victorin, and you will find that generosity to me is not unrewarded.—­Come, by the Poker! welcome your stepmother and come to the wedding.”

“But you have not told us the lady’s name, papa,” said Celestine.