hinder me from indulging in too fervid dreams.--Which evidently meant
an end to the intended marriage, and no settlements for me!"

"Your mother is a very good woman, noble, admirable!" replied the
father, deeply humiliated, though not sorry to hear this confession.

"She told me yesterday that she had your permission to sell her
diamonds so as to give me something to marry on; but I should like her
to keep her jewels, and to find a husband myself. I think I have found
the man, the possible husband, answering to mamma's prospectus----"

"There?--in the Place du Carrousel?--and in one morning?"

"Oh, papa, the mischief lies deeper!" said she archly.

"Well, come, my child, tell the whole story to your good old father,"
said he persuasively, and concealing his uneasiness.

Under promise of absolute secrecy, Hortense repeated the upshot of her
various conversations with her Cousin Betty. Then, when they got home,
she showed the much-talked-of-seal to her father in evidence of the
sagacity of her views. The father, in the depth of his heart, wondered
at the skill and acumen of girls who act on instinct, discerning the
simplicity of the scheme which her idealized love had suggested in the
course of a single night to his guileless daughter.

"You will see the masterpiece I have just bought; it is to be brought
home, and that dear Wenceslas is to come with the dealer.--The man who
made that group ought to make a fortune; only use your influence to
get him an order for a statue, and rooms at the Institut----"