You may marry in France, certainly, without
the consent of your parents—you cannot
marry in an ordinary way without that consent,
if you are a man forty years of age and
upwards—after three acts of sommations
respectueuses; that is, supposing you are
twenty-five years old. But, then, if you have
recourse to these respectful summonses, you
break with your family for ever; you make
an open rupture, and create a public scandal;
and no French father or mother will forgive
you. M. Jules was in a terrible condition,
therefore. He loved his mother tenderly, and
he could not make up his mind to a respectful
summons. He knew her too well to
dream of her consent to a marriage which
had only love and poverty for its foundation,
now that she had unfolded before him her
more ambitious projects. No; Madame
Adolphe, with her beautiful toilette and
pleasant manners, was a block of adamant in
her will. Jules was forced to obey or to
defy her; and good, soft-hearted, bearded
Jules could not make up his mind to do
that.

He went and told Marie, and Marie decided
for him. They bade each other a sad
adieu; Jules going back to his mother
a sulky, peevish, irritable man, and Marie
retreating into her little sorrowful apartments
—her two rooms and a kitchen—as
still and as retired as a veiled nun. Nothing
could equal the melancholy of her life
in her small apartments, four stories high,
where she and Josephine lived. She very
seldom went out; and all through the long
winter sat, with her saddened thoughts and
sorrowed love, wondering why she still lived,
after having been so near death.

A letter in an unknown hand, and with a
broad black seal, came to " Miss Mary
Maconnell " one day. It was written on thick
English paper, was unpaid, and cost her
thirty-two sous. On opening it she read that
her father's brother, Hugh, had died without
a will, and that therefore his property had
fallen to her and Emilie, as his next of kin,
without any other claimants to interfere.
The housekeeper with the cherry ribbons was
not mentioned even in a codicil. Nor the
parrot.

The news soon spread in the Quartier, and
came in turn to Madame Adolphe.

"Here's a lucky circumstance!" cried
Madame Adolphe, when the bath-woman in
the Rue de Courcelles told her that Mademoiselle
Marie had inherited an enormous
fortune. "Behold us all content!"

Madame Adolphe was suddenly enraptured.
That dear Marie: so good; so patient; so
self-sacrificing. Madame Adolphe had never
had any objection to Marie personally. It
was only Marie's poverty. Rich, she became
at once the most beautiful and charming
young person of the neighbourhood; one
whose acquaintance Madame Adolphe must
really cultivate.

She caught up her petticoats on her left
side in the marvellous manner of the French
women, tripped away from the bath over the
swimming gutters and filthy streets, without
picking up a speck of mud, and hurried
home. Just as Jules entered after a long
day's work among hooping-cough.

"Jules, my child, do you know the news?"

"No, mother," said Jules, sulkily.

He had never been the same son as formerly
—had ceased to be the affectionate, gentle,
respectful person that most well-nurtured
Frenchmen are—honour to them for it!—
had grown cold, and sullen, and wayward, and
led his mother but a poor life.

"And you do not know—the little Marie—
your ancient friend and patient?":

"Why speak of her, mother 1"

"Because I have news that will delight
you."

"Delight me! Married, perhaps?"

"Perhaps so, my son," said Madame
Adolphe, settling her cap. It was trimmed
with violets, and was very becoming.

"Oh, mother, how cruel you are !" said
Jules, the tears coming into his honest
eyes. "I have obeyed you faithfully, and
sacrificed my own inclinations to your
wishes. You ought to spare me mockery
and irony!"

Madame Adolphe's lips quivered, and tears
came into her eyes too. From sympathy she
put her arms round her son's neck and kissed
him.

"Forgive me, Jules, for all the pain I have
caused you. It was for your own good. But
come with me to the little Marie. She is rich,
and you can marry her now, without wronging
her children and destroying yourself.
Come! We will both ask her for her love;
and she shall find a mother, and a fond one,
on the day when she accepts you as her husband.
Come, my Jules, let us make the little
one happy, and let me take back my old place
in my son's heart through the gentle mediatorship
of his wife!"

That night a blessed soul shone brilliant
with joy, like a star through the dark sky
of life; a happy heart, freighted with love
and hope, floated down the rushing stream,
of sorrow, to ascend it no more. Marie,
kneeling in thy moonlight, thanked God
for the suffering she had passed, since by that
suffering, she said, she knew better what was
her present bliss.

Alter all the different formalities had been
complied with, after the consent of mamma
had been duly notified, and the certificate of
birth and baptism had been obtained for the
civil marriage; and after all the religious
rites had been complied with, Jules and Marie
were married. All the faubourg went to
Saint Philippe to see the wedding. Marie
was pronounced charming and perfectly
dressed; and, to mark the public approbation
of the whole affair, the quéte—or collection
for the poor made by one of the