‘One never knows,’ said Michel.  ’Young women are queer cattle to take to market.  One can never be quite certain which way they want to go.  After you are off to-morrow, I will have a few words with her.  She does not quite understand as yet that she must make her hay while the sun shines.  Some of ’em are all in a hurry to get married, and some of ’em again are all for hanging back, when their friends wish it.  It’s natural, I believe, that they should be contrary.  But Marie is as good as the best of them, and when I speak to her, she’ll hear reason.’

Adrian Urmand had no alternative but to assent to the innkeeper’s proposition.  The idea of making love second-hand was not pleasant to him; but he could not hinder the uncle from speaking his mind to the niece.  One little suggestion he did make before he took his departure.  ’It can’t be, I suppose, that there is any one else that she likes better?’ To this Michel Voss made no answer in words, but shook his head in a fashion that made Adrian feel assured that there was no danger on that head.

But Michel Voss, though he had shaken his head in a manner so satisfactory, had feared that there was such danger.  He had considered himself justified in shaking his head, but would not be so false as to give in words the assurance which Adrian had asked.  That night he discussed the matter with his wife, declaring it as his purpose that Marie Bromar should marry Adrian Urmand.  ’It is impossible that she should do better,’ said Michel.

‘It would be very well,’ said Madame Voss.

’Very well!  Why, he is worth thirty thousand francs, and is as steady at his business as his father was before him.’

‘He is a dandy.’

‘Psha! that is nothing!’ said Michel.

‘And he is too fond of money.’

‘It is a fault on the right side,’ said Michel.  ’His wife and children will not come to want.’

Madame Voss paused a moment before she made her last and grand objection to the match.  ‘It is my belief,’ said she, ’that Marie is always thinking of George.’

‘Then she had better cease to think of him,’ said Michel; ’for George is not thinking of her.’  He said nothing farther, but resolved to speak his own mind freely to Marie Bromar.

CHAPTER III.

The old-fashioned inn at Colmar, at which George Voss was acting as assistant and chief manager to his father’s distant cousin, Madame Faragon, was a house very different in all its belongings from the Lion d’Or at Granpere.  It was very much larger, and had much higher pretensions.  It assumed to itself the character of a first-class hotel; and when Colmar was without a railway, and was a great posting-station on the high road from Strasbourg to Lyons, there was some real business at the Hotel de la Poste in that town.  At present, though Colmar may probably have been benefited by the railway, the inn has faded,