sheriff's wife. "Mollot has told me," she continued in a low voice,
"what took place here to-day--it is pitiable! Only one man showed
talent, and that was Achille Pigoult. Everybody agrees that he would
make a fine orator in the Chamber; and therefore, though he has
nothing, and my daughter has a _dot_ of sixty thousand francs, not to
speak of what, as an only child, she will inherit from us and also
from her uncle at Mollot and from my aunt Lambert at Troyes,--well, I
declare to you that if Monsieur Achille Pigoult did us the honor to
ask her to wife, I should give her to him; yes, I should--provided
always she liked him. But the silly little goose wants to marry as she
pleases; it is Mademoiselle Beauvisage who puts such notions into her
head."

The sub-prefect received this double broadside like a man who knows he
has thirty thousand francs a year, and expects a prefecture.

"Mademoiselle is right," he said, looking at Cecile; "she is rich
enough to make a marriage of love."

"Don't let us talk about marriage," said Ernestine; "it saddens my
poor dear Cecile, who was owning to me just now that in order not to
be married for her money, but for herself, she should like an affair
with some stranger who knew nothing of Arcis and her future
expectations as Lady Croesus, and would spin her a romance to end in
true love and a marriage."

"That's a very pretty idea!" cried Olivier Vinet, joining the group of
young ladies in order to get away from the partisans of Simon, the
idol of the day. "I always knew that Mademoiselle had as much sense as
money."