THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN
not blame her for her choice. Indeed she could not have done better, perfectly matched as they were in their borrowed plumes.
“And now comes a curious thing: so puffed up was that big animal of a father over the impression the girl had made, and so proud was he over the offers he received shortly after for her hand—among them a fellow herdsman twenty years her senior—that he immediately began to put on airs of distinction. A man with such a daughter, he said to himself, was also a man of weight and prominence in the community; he, therefore, had certain duties to perform. This was his only child; moreover, was he not rich, being the owner of more than a hundred head of cattle, and did he not have money in the banks? Loyette—have I told you her name was Loyette?—Loyette should marry no one of the young fellows about her—he had other and higher views for her. What these views were nobody knew, but one thing was certain, and that was that Henri, whom she loved with all her heart, and who had danced with her around the May-pole, was forbidden the house. The excuse was that his people were not of her class; that they were poor, his father being … Oh, the same
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