Charlotte's Inheritance. M. E. Braddon

of a husband. I like your son; and my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it pass; we will say no more."

      Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Côtenoir that he thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son.

      This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted.

      "The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in

       Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon.

       But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my

       daughter, we may give him encouragement."

      This was solemnly agreed between the two fathers. Nor was Mademoiselle Frehlter to be told of the matrimonial scheme until it ripened. But after this dinner at Côtenoir the household at Beaubocage talked of little else than of the union of the two families. What grandeur, what wealth, what happiness! Gustave the lord of Côtenoir! Poor Cydalise had never seen a finer mansion than the old château, with its sugar-loaf towers and stone terraces, and winding stairs, and tiny inconvenient turret chambers, and long dreary salon and salle-à-manger. She could picture to herself nothing more splendid. For Gustave to be offered the future possession of Côtenoir was as if he were suddenly to be offered the succession to a kingdom. She could not bring herself to consider that Madelon was neither agreeable nor attractive, and that, after all, the wife must count for something in every marriage contract. She could see nothing, she could think of nothing, but Côtenoir. The glory and grandeur of that estate absorbed every other consideration.

      No one of those three conspirators feared any opposition on the part of their victim. It was just possible that Gustave might have fallen in love with some Parisian damsel, though his letters gave no hint of any such calamity. But if such a misfortune had happened, he would, of course, fall out of love again, return the damsel her troth and obtain the return of his own, and straightway offer the second-hand commodity to Mademoiselle Frehlter.

      The object of all these cares and hopes and dreams arrived at last, full of life and spirits, with plenty to tell about Paris in general, and very little to tell about himself in particular. The women questioned him unmercifully. They insisted on a graphic description of every female inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither pretty nor fascinating.

      "She is a dear, good, industrious little thing," he said, "and works harder than I do. But she is no miracle of beauty; and her life is so dreary that I often wonder she does not go into a convent. It would be gayer and pleasanter for her than to live with those old women at the Pension Magnotte."

      "I suppose there are many beautiful women in Paris?" said Cydalise, bent upon knowing the worst.

      "Well, I dare say there are," Gustave answered frankly; "but we students don't see much of them in our quarter. One sees a pretty little milliner's girl now and then, or a washerwoman. In short, there are a good many grisettes in our part of the world," added the young man, blushing, but for no sin of his own. "We get a glimpse of a handsome woman sometimes, rattling past in her carriage; but in Paris handsome women do not go on foot. I have seen prettier girls at Vevinord than in Paris."

      Cydalise was enchanted with this confession.

      "Yes," she exclaimed, "our Normandy is the place for pretty girls.

       Madelon Frehlter, for example, is not she a very—amiable girl?"

      "I dare say she's amiable enough," answered Gustave; "but if there were no prettier girls than Mademoiselle Frehlter in this part of the world, we should have no cause to boast. But there are prettier girls, Cydalise, and thou art thyself one of them."

      After this speech the young man bestowed upon his sister a resounding kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise knew that to be in love was to be miserable.

      From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was miraculous; Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's worsted-work was a thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her mother and her mother's poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful bearing to the good Abbé St. Velours—her mother's director—was positively beyond all praise. It was virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a girl was too good for earth—too good for anything except Gustave.

      The young man heard and wondered.

      "How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to me the most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has nothing to say for herself; she never appears to know where to put her elbows. I never saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her shoulders!—O heaven, then, her shoulders!—it ought to be forbidden to wear low dresses when one has such shoulders."

      This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability—all the Christian graces? Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat gauche; Gustave called her bête. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady?

      At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Côtenoir and a dinner at Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household—since, indeed, it was not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker sex—the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been shaped for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that the revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.

      "Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said, gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le Baron has done me. That goes without saying."

      "But the two estates!—together they would make you a great proprietor.

       You would not surely refuse such fortune?"

      Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.

      "Côtenoir! to refuse Côtenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But figure to yourself, then, Gustave—"

      "Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the château; a fixture that we cannot dispense with."

      "But she, so amiable, so pious—"

      "So plain, so stupid—"

      "So modest, so charitable—"

      "In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Côtenoir is a grand old place; but I would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my sister, and for Madelon—for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body; but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity—bah! It would be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the hope of escaping—an underground passage, burrowed out with one's finger-nails in the dead of the night—a work lasting twenty years or so, but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good, unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there would be no