that he loved her. On the other hand, the senior apprentice, with his
long legs, his chestnut hair, his big hands and powerful frame, had
found a secret admirer in Mademoiselle Virginie, who, in spite of her
dower of fifty thousand crowns, had as yet no suitor. Nothing could be
more natural than these two passions at cross-purposes, born in the
silence of the dingy shop, as violets bloom in the depths of a wood.
The mute and constant looks which made the young people's eyes meet by
sheer need of change in the midst of persistent work and cloistered
peace, was sure, sooner or later, to give rise to feelings of love.
The habit of seeing always the same face leads insensibly to our
reading there the qualities of the soul, and at last effaces all its
defects.

"At the pace at which that man goes, our girls will soon have to go on
their knees to a suitor!" said Monsieur Guillaume to himself, as he
read the first decree by which Napoleon drew in advance on the
conscript classes.

From that day the old merchant, grieved at seeing his eldest daughter
fade, remembered how he had married Mademoiselle Chevrel under much
the same circumstances as those of Joseph Lebas and Virginie. A good
bit of business, to marry off his daughter, and discharge a sacred
debt by repaying to an orphan the benefit he had formerly received
from his predecessor under similar conditions! Joseph Lebas, who was
now three-and-thirty, was aware of the obstacle which a difference of
fifteen years placed between Augustine and himself. Being also too
clear-sighted not to understand Monsieur Guillaume's purpose, he knew
his inexorable principles well enough to feel sure that the second
would never marry before the elder. So the hapless assistant, whose
heart was as warm as his legs were long and his chest deep, suffered