whom he had been well acquainted. He was a councillor of the Parliament
of Rouen, and had enjoyed a great reputation during his lifetime.

My sweetheart was above the ordinary height, her hair was a fine golden
colour, and her regular features, despite the brilliance of her eyes,
expressed candour and modesty. Her dress allowed me to follow all the
lines of her figure, and the eyes dwelt pleasantly on the beauty of her
form, and on the two spheres which seemed to lament their too close
confinement. Although M. le Noir said nothing of all this, it was easy to
see that in his own way he admired her perfections no less than I. He
left us at eight o'clock, and half an hour afterwards the fat aunt went
away followed by her charming niece and the pale man who had come with
them. I lost no time in taking leave with Tiretta, who promised the
Pope's niece to join her on the morrow, which he did.

Three or four days later I received at my office a letter from Mdlle. de
la Meure--the pretty niece. It ran as follows: "Madame, my aunt, my late
mother's sister, is a devotee, fond of gaming, rich, stingy, and unjust.
She does not like me, and not having succeeded in persuading me to take
the veil, she wants to marry me to a wealthy Dunkirk merchant, whom I do
not know, but (mark this) whom she does not know any more than I do. The
matrimonial agent has praised him very much, and very naturally, as a man
must praise his own goods. This gentleman is satisfied with an income of
twelve hundred francs per annum, but he promises to leave me in his will
no less than a hundred and fifty thousand francs. You must know that by
my mother's will my aunt is obliged to pay me on my wedding day
twenty-five thousand crowns.

"If what has taken place between us has not made me contemptible in your
sight, I offer you my hand and heart with sixty-five thousand francs, and