'Alas! yes,' and the old man sighed and carried his hand to his face. 'Alas! yes'--he brushed away something from the neighbourhood of his eye; 'these pestering flies, how early in the season they come this year! Here is one has got under my lashes and brings the water down my cheeks. We were speaking about the soldier's life. Have you ever read Michelet's treatise on Love?' The voice was broken. 'Never.' The O'Hoolohan was beginning to be curiously fidgety again. 'I have been reading it these latter days. A wise, affectionate book written by a wise, affectionate man. It was in it I found an Indian maxim referred to which says _la femme c'est la maison_: "the wife is the home." There, sir, you have the whole philosophy of the soldier's unsatisfying life. He has no home; he wants the wife to make it.' The old man buried his face in his hands. There was a long pause, during which Berthe, agitated at the turn the conversation had taken, could count the throbbing of her pulse. Her grandfather, no longer able to dissemble his anguish, silently nursed his grief in the cradle of memory. The suitor, who had been craftily leading up the dialogue to the avowal he wished, yet feared to make, if his face were index, was a prey to a violent mental struggle. At length, with an effort, which made itself physically perceptible in a jump on his chair, he broke the silence: 'Captain Chauvin, you're listening. About this private business I would speak with you.' The old man raised his head. 'You have a grand-daughter.' Berthe tried to rise from her seat, but found herself unable. Poor, pretty creature, she had miscalculated her strength. She had yet to learn that there are other feelings that can rob the limbs of their functions than terror or ecstasy of joy. The Irishman resumed: 'I want a wife. _Voilà toute l'affaire!_' Sure never was a maiden wooed in such a fashion; sure never was a hand so demanded. 'Faint heart never won fair lady,' saith the proverb, and there is truth in it. The old man looked from his visitor to Berthe, and from Berthe to his visitor. 'You have an open face,' he said at length; 'you have been a soldier, and I trust a soldier's honour not to betray the confidence of a comrade. I feel that I am getting old, and my Song-bird will want a protector. You would guard her----' 'As the apple of my eye.' 'You can guard her?' 'I would not lead those I love on the path of misery.' 'Seek your answer from the child herself; I can read it already.' Gently the strong man approached the girl, reverently almost, as one would approach a sanctuary. He laid his hand on the soft wavy surface of her chestnut hair, and in a voice whose soldierly firmness was modulated to gentlest coaxing persuasion he whispered: 'Darling, I wait on thee. Wilt thou accept the hand of an honest man? 'Tis rough, but there is no stain of dishonour upon it.'