"Cotenoir! to refuse Cotenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But figure to yourself, then, Gustave--" "Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the chateau; a fixture that we cannot dispense with." "But she, so amiable, so pious--" "So plain, so stupid--" "So modest, so charitable--" "In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Cotenoir is a grand old place; but I would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body; but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so, but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good, unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there would be no escape. Ah, bah!" Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much. Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage, the wealth of Cotenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed. Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!