. . .BR> would be as if a son should come into our family; if it were anyone
else, it would be you, our daughter, who would go among strangers. The
young fellow pleases us. Would he please you?"

She stammered, blushing up to the roots of her hair:

"I am willing, papa."

And the father, looking into her eyes and still smiling, murmured:

"I half suspected it, young lady."

She lived till evening in a condition of exhilaration, not knowing
what she was doing, mechanically thinking of one thing by mistake for
another, and with a feeling of weariness, although she had not walked
at all.

Toward six o'clock, as she was sitting with her mother under the plane
tree, the vicomte appeared.

Jeanne's heart began to throb wildly. The young man approached them
apparently without any emotion. When he was close beside them, he took
the baroness' hand and kissed her fingers, then raising to his lip. . . Read More