"If she were your sister, or even your daughter, would you not give her
to him?"

This question struck deeper than he knew, for one of her daughters was
not well-favored, and the girl's future was beginning to give the
maternal heart much uneasiness. The mother laughed no longer; her eyes
filled, and she made no reply. Without searching into the cause of his
cousin's emotion, the judge was only too glad to take her silence for
consent.

"Very well," he went on. "Now you must help me to arrange this
marriage."

In order to humor her innocent vanity, he pictured the obstacles that
she would find in the character of Mr. Mitrophanis, and urged his own
inability to overcome them; he frankly declared that his mediation had
compromised his friend's suit, and that the affair was far more
difficult than if it had been in her hands from the beginning; he
insisted that she alone could retrieve the mistakes committed, and bring
about a happy ending.

His cousin's objections gradually grew weaker and at last, after three
hours of argument, the judge succeeded so well that she left her work
(to the temporary disadvantage of her younger son), and put on her
bonnet. The two went out together, she to call on Mr. Mitrophanis, and
he to find the professor.