his infirmities, and as his neighbour, frequently saw and tried to console him.  On the other hand the cripple, though forty years old, and in a state of health which it is impossible to describe, fell positively in love with the young girl, who alone of all the ladies who visited him combined wit with perfect modesty.  He pitied her destitution.  There was mutual pity, and we all know what passion that feeling is akin to.

Still, for a paralytic, utterly unfit for marriage in any point of view, to offer to a beautiful young girl, would have seemed ridiculous, if not unpardonable.  But let us take into account the difference in ideas of matrimony between ourselves and the French.  We must remember that marriage has always been regarded among our neighbours as a contract for mutual benefit, into which the consideration of money of necessity entered largely.  It is true that some qualities are taken as equivalents for actual cash:  thus, if a young man has a straight and well-cut nose he may sell himself at a higher price than a young man there with the hideous pug; if a girl is beautiful, the marquis will be content with some thousands of francs less for her dower than if her hair were red or her complexion irreclaimably brown.  If Julie has a pretty foot, a svelte waist, and can play the piano thunderingly, or sing in the charmingest soprano, her ten thousand francs are quite as acceptable as those of stout awkward, glum-faced Jeannette.  The faultless boots and yellow kids of young Adolphe counterbalance the somewhat apocryphal vicomte of ill-kempt and ill-attired Henri.

But then there must be some fortune.  A Frenchman is so much in the habit of expecting it, that he thinks it almost a crime to fall in love where there is none.  Francoise, pretty, clever, agreeable as she was, was penniless, and even worse, she was the daughter of a man who had been imprisoned on suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her livelihood by needlework.  All these considerations made the fancy of the merry abbe less ridiculous, and Francoise herself, being sufficiently versed in the ways of the world to understand the disadvantage under which she laboured, was less amazed and disgusted than another girl might have been, when, in due course, the cripple offered her himself and his dumb-waiter.  He had little more to give—­his pension, a tiny income from his prebend and his Marquisat de Quinet.

The offer of the little man was not so amusing as other episodes of his life.  He went honestly to work; represented to her what a sad lot would hers be, if Madame de Neuillant died, and what were the temptations of beauty without a penny.  His arguments were more to the point than delicate, and he talked to the young girl as if she was a woman of the world.  Still, she accepted him, cripple as he was.

Madame de Neuillant made no objection, for she was only too glad to be rid of a beauty, who ate and drank, but did not marry.