_tutoiement_, but only in their native dialect. When the
receiver-general of Bourges, the youngest of the brothers Grossetete,
married his daughter in 1823 to the youngest son of Comte Fontaine,
Sauviat felt sure that the Grossetetes would never allow Graslin to
enter their family.

After his conference with the banker, Pere Sauviat returned home
joyously. He dined that night in his daughter's room, and after dinner
he said to his womenkind:--

"Veronique will be Madame Graslin."

"Madame Graslin!" exclaimed Mere Sauviat, astounded.

"Is it possible?" said Veronique, to whom Graslin was personally
unknown, and whose imagination regarded him very much as a Parisian
grisette would regard a Rothschild.

"Yes, it is settled," said old Sauviat solemnly. "Graslin will furnish
his house magnificently; he is to give our daughter a fine Parisian
carriage and the best horses to be found in the Limousin; he will buy
an estate worth five hundred thousand francs, and settle that and his
town-house upon her. Veronique will be the first lady in Limoges, the
richest in the department, and she can do what she pleases with
Graslin."

Veronique's education, her religious ideas, and her boundless
affection for her parents, prevented her from making a single
objection; it did not even cross her mind to think that she had been
disposed of without reference to her own will. On the morrow Sauviat