Julie's heart was iced; everything was
hard and cold; the very air seemed to want,
even on that July night, a genial warmth.
It was odd to see that the flowers in the
window kept their bloom, even for four and
twenty hours.

Madame Perrin went out immediately to
pay her various visits, leaving Julie at home
to fret. Poor girl! the world looked sad
enough to her, as she went into the bureau,
and indulged in the thoughts it brought to
her mind. But, how infinitely was this
sadness deepened when, on the following day,
her father and mother told her that the
sallow young gentleman she had seen on the
day of her arrival, was destined to be her
husband! He was rich; his family was
good; and all the preliminaries had been
arranged. In Paris, the custom for parents is
to choose husbands for their daughters;—
it is the custom for daughters to accept
suitors, without knowing them, or caring for
them. Julie had read of refractory children
in various romances, but in real life she had
seen only obedience. She loved Adolphe,
even in his convict clothes, and in her soul
believed him innocent. Her mother, to
whom she confided this belief one day, told
her angrily never to express such a conviction
again, if she valued her love. Adolphe
had been fairly tried and fairly convicted;
and she begged that his name might never
more be mentioned in her presence.

Therefore, how could Julie; in the presence
of parents to whom money and family were the
guiding stars of life; whose eyes were cold as
winter moonlight when they fell upon her;
whose words were rigid, and meant to be
commands; how could she, timid as a bird,
venture to go in the face of custom and say
that she would not marry the husband of
their choice; that she despised money
purchased at the cost of every social virtue;
that she loved a convict? She bowed her
head and wept; and her hand was placed in
that of a strange young man, who bowed
low and kissed it formally. She was thus
betrothed, and went away to her room in
mortal horror of the time when the cold lips
that had pressed her hand would claim the
right to chill her cheek.

The marriage once determined on; the
preliminaries were pressed forward with
great vigour. Julie was in agony; the sight
of her future husband disgusted her. She
was told that she was too young to know her
own mind; that she would learn to love him;
that many of her school companions, who had
married the husbands of their parents' choice,
had lived to acknowledge the parental sagacity.
She passed nearly all her time in her
room; her father, since Adolphe's
conviction, had kept the keys of his bureau
himself, and had also attended to his own
books. He was certain, now, that he could
not be swindled. But, he told his wife,
one evening, in Julie's presence, as he pored
over his accounts, that he had been so long
accustomed to a clerk, that he had almost
forgotten how to cast up the simplest sum.
There was a wide margin between the sum
he ought to have in hand, according to his
books, and the sum he actually possessed.

"Try again," replied Madame Perrin,
calmly, as she laid out her embroidery over
her knee, to notice the effect of the pattern.
"Try again, monsieur; it must be your
mistake."

Monsieur Perrin sat up very late that
night, poring over figures, and twisting
and recasting them, in the hope of obtaining
a satisfactory result. Yet there were one or
two thousand francs unaccounted for. The
keys of the desk had never left his pocket;
therefore, this time, he could not have been,
robbed. However, the sum was not large,
and the marriage preparations demanded
considerable time, so the rich broker could
afford to forget the discrepancy for the
moment, promising himself to go into it
again at some future time. Madame Perrin,
too, begged that Monsieur would not suffer
so trivial a matter to interfere with the more
important affairs he had in hand. It was
small and mean. How could he expect to
arrange all his vast affairs in a day or two?
Monsieur Perrin saw the force of his wife's
observations, and busied himself simply with
his balance in hand, which he took remarkable
care to keep under lock and key, the
key being perpetually in his own pocket. He
would not entrust it to any person on the
face of the earth again, since Adolphe had
deceived him. " The young rascal, too, had
such an innocent look of his own,"
remarked Monsieur Perrin, as he twirled the
key round his forefinger.

In three days Julie was to be married; in
three days the sallow young gentleman was
to be happy. Madame Perrin was very busy
indeed, and very serious. But, that was
natural in a mother who was about to lose
her only child. She was continually out,
thinking of trifles for her daughter; and
then, when she came in, she invariably went
to her own room. Monsieur Perrin was also
very busy. In three days all this bustle
would be over, and Monsieur and Madame
Perrin would be alone. Madame could not
sleep; at least, three nights before the
marriage, even at one o'clock in the morning—
when, standing in the vast courtyard of the
hotel, there was not a light to be seen in the
long rows of windows that towered to a sixth
story — through the dense red curtains of
Madame Perrin's boudoir the close observer
might have perceived the faint glow from her
lamp. She was still sitting up. The eye that
could have peered through the red curtains
would have perceived the lady, with three or
four open letters before her, devouring their
contents one after the other; then rising,
apparently to listen at the door; then walking
to and fro uneasily. The monotony of all this,