"Bless me, do you think it is all a fable? I told you truth in jest."

"And he is in love with you?" asked Hortense eagerly.

"He adores me," replied Lisbeth very seriously. "You see, child, he
had never seen any women but the washed out, pale things they all are
in the north, and a slender, brown, youthful thing like me warmed his
heart.--But, mum; you promised, you know!"

"And he will fare like the five others," said the girl ironically, as
she looked at the seal.

"Six others, miss. I left one in Lorraine, who, to this day, would
fetch the moon down for me."

"This one does better than that," said Hortense; "he has brought down
the sun."

"Where can that be turned into money?" asked her cousin. "It takes
wide lands to benefit by the sunshine."

These witticisms, fired in quick retort, and leading to the sort of
giddy play that may be imagined, had given cause for the laughter
which had added to the Baroness' troubles by making her compare her
daughter's future lot with the present, when she was free to indulge
the light-heartedness of youth.

"But to give you a gem which cost him six months of work, he must be
under some great obligations to you?" said Hortense, in whom the