"And," continued Ernestine, "she has selected for the hero of her
romance--"

"Oh!" interrupted Madame Mollot, "an old man of fifty!--fie!"

"How do you know he is fifty?" asked Olivier Vinet, laughing.

"How?" replied Madame Mollot. "Why, this morning I was so puzzled that
I got out my opera-glass--"

"Bravo!" cried the superintendent of _ponts et chaussees_, who was
paying court to the mother to obtain the daughter.

"And so," continued Madame Mollot, "I was able to see him shaving;
with such elegant razors!--mounted in gold, or silver-gilt!"

"Gold! gold, of course!" said Vinet. "When things are unknown they
should always be imagined of the finest quality. Consequently I, not
having seen this gentleman, am perfectly sure that he is at least a
count."

This speech created a laugh; and the laughing group excited the
jealousy of a group of dowagers and the attention of a troop of men in
black who surrounded Simon Giguet. As for the latter, he was chafing
in despair at not being able to lay his fortune and his future at the
feet of the rich Cecile.

"Yes," continued Vinet, "a man distinguished for his birth, for his
manners, his fortune, his equipages,--a lion, a dandy, a