"'You are a foolish boy,' replied the Count. 'I will send you well
gloved. It is no secretary of mine that will be lodged in the Rue
Saint-Maur in the little garden-house which I have at his disposal. It
is my distant cousin, Baron de l'Hostal, a lawyer high in
office . . ."

"After a moment of silent surprise, I heard the gate bell ring, and a
carriage came into the courtyard. Presently the footman announced
Madame de Courteville and her daughter. The Count had a large family
connection on his mother's side. Madame de Courteville, his cousin,
was the widow of a judge on the bench of the Seine division, who had
left her a daughter and no fortune whatever. What could a woman of
nine-and-twenty be in comparison with a young girl of twenty, as
lovely as imagination could wish for an ideal mistress?

"'Baron, and Master of Appeals, till you get something better, and
this old house settled on her,--would not you have enough good reasons
for not falling in love with the Countess?' he said to me in a
whisper, as he took me by the hand and introduced me to Madame de
Courteville and her daughter.

"I was dazzled, not so much by these advantages of which I had never
dreamed, but by Amelie de Courteville, whose beauty was thrown into
relief by one of those well-chosen toilets which a mother can achieve
for a daughter when she wants to see her married.

"But I will not talk of myself," said the Consul after a pause.

"Three weeks later I went to live in the gardener's cottage, which had
been cleaned, repaired, and furnished with the celerity which is