desirable offers, and wished nothing better than to retain her
maidenhood. It was the sole article concerning which this heiress had
discussions with those around her. When her father took it into his
head to grow angry and cry, "You must!" she would burst out laughing;
whereupon he would laugh also, and say: "I'm not the master here; in
fact, I am placed in the position of a ploughman arguing with a priest."

It is very dangerous to tax one's brains too much when one dines out
frequently. During the winter of 1875, M. Moriaz had undertaken an
excess of work; he was overdriven, and his health suffered. He was
attacked by one of those anemic disorders of which we hear so much
nowadays, and which may be called _la maladie a la mode_. He was obliged
to break in upon his daily routine, employ an assistant, and early in
July his physician ordered him to set out for Engadine, and try the
chalybeate water-cure at Saint Moritz. The trip from Paris to Saint
Moritz cannot be made without passing through Chur. It was at Chur that
Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz, who accompanied her father, met for the first
time Count Abel Larinski. When the decree of Destiny goes forth, the
spider and the fly must inevitably meet.

Abel Larinski had arrived at Chur from Vienna, having taken the route
through Milan and across the Splugen Pass. Although he was very short of
funds, upon reaching the capital of the canton of Grisons he had put up
at the Hotel Steinbock, the best and most expensive in the place. It was
his opinion that he owed this mark of respect to Count Larinski; such
duties he held to be very sacred, and he fulfilled them religiously. He
was in a very melancholy mood, and set out for a promenade in order to
divert his mind. In crossing the Plessur Bridge, he fixed his troubled
eyes on the muddy waters of the stream, and he felt almost tempted
to take the fatal leap; but in such a project there is considerable