"Pauvre petite chatte!" thought his wife, as a last resource of consolation, "at least her children will be secure."
"We will now sign it," said the notary.
"But I must go for the bride," prompted his wife.
They seemed to have forgotten her completely in their excitement over the settlement of so much property and money,—both her and the young man who stood unheeded, unconsulted, in the corner of the room; his own insignificant personal capital of youth, hope, strength, love, honor, ambition, unmentioned in the elaborate catalogue prepared by the step-mother. It was all valueless as an endowment. Like an automaton he had been provided for and given over to his childish foible for a wife.
The noise of the street invaded the parlors, but genteelly and discreetly sifted of impurity by the fine lace curtains at the end windows of the long narrow room. The half-closed shutters gave oblique views of the gallery, with its iron balustrade and canopy, and rows of plants thriving luxuriantly. They had only contracted pots
