so. Sinee this morning, I have had a conversation with Monsieur Maillefert, who made no scruple to tell me of Marie's preference for De Cheville. He, also, at once furnished the requisite money, for which I gave him a receipt, as your attorney; but not until he had established his right to do this kindness, by informing me that he is about to become your brother-in-law!"
"Is this true, Madame?" exelaimed Le Vert, purple with passion, and hardly able to wait for Beman to conclude. "Is my son jilted for this upstart?"
"I can not permit this language here, Sir," said she, with eyes flashing the ire of insulted pride.
"Let me represent you," said Beman quietly. "Monsieur, I think your negotiation has failed, and you had better let me escort you to the door. And," he added in a low tone, as the discomfited old gentleman allowed himself to be gently ejected, "you may consider yourself well off, if I do not too closely scan your accounts as administrator!"
A look of consternation was his only reply; at least, if he intended any other, Beman did not wait for it, but closed the door and returned to the window.
About the middle of October—when the "Indian summer" had veiled the prairies, and the distant woods wore a hazy blue, and the sky seemed charged with rain that never fell—one pleasant evening, when the winds were low, and the moon rose dusky red, and the stars shone faintly through the gauzy screen—after sunset, when the darkness had come in, yet the daylight lingered still, when the gay Kaskaskians were all upon the street, and care was driven out by laughter—a stream of guests, of every age and sex, began to pour into the house of Monsieur Maillefert. The master and mistress, who had been married a month, at the close of the carnival-honeymoon, were celebrating a sort of "Pancake Tuesday;" but the brightness of their faces, and their unaffected joyousness of manner, gave no token of the matrimonial Lent, which the world supposes invariably to follow that
