strive against fate."

Then, rising to her feet, she drew from a crack in the wall, which
formed a safe hiding-place for her secrets, a soiled and crumpled
letter, and, unfolding it, she read for perhaps the hundredth time these
words:--

"MADEMOISELLE,--

"To see you is to love you. I give you my word of honor that this is
true. The wretched hovel where your charms are hidden is no fit
abode for you. A home, worthy in every way to receive you, is at
your service--Rue de Douai. It has been taken in your name, as I am
straightforward in these matters. Think of my proposal, and make what
inquiries you like concerning me. I have not yet attained my majority,
but shall do so in five months and three days, when I shall inherit my
mother's fortune. My father is wealthy, but old and infirm. From four to
six in the afternoon of the next few days I will be in a carriage at the
corner of the Place de Petit Pont.

"GASTON DE GANDELU."


The cynical insolence of the letter, together with its entire want of
form, was a perfect example of the style affected by those loiterers
about town, known to the Parisians as "mashers;" and yet Rose did not
appear at all disgusted by the reception of such an unworthily worded
proposal, but, on the contrary, rather pleased by its contents. "If I
only dared," mused she, with a sigh,--"ah, if I only dared!" For a time
she sat deeply immersed in thought, with her face buried in her hands,