"You understand, my child, that it is not your part to ascertain whether your cousin's lover is a Count, if he has all his papers properly certified, and if his conduct is a guarantee for his respectability.--As for your cousin, she refused five offers when she was twenty years younger; that will prove no obstacle, I undertake to say." "Listen to me, papa; if you really wish to see me married, never say a word to Lisbeth about it till just before the contract is signed. I have been catechizing her about this business for the last six months! Well, there is something about her quite inexplicable----" "What?" said her father, puzzled. "Well, she looks evil when I say too much, even in joke, about her lover. Make inquiries, but leave me to row my own boat. My confidence ought to reassure you." "The Lord said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me.' You are one of those who have come back again," replied the Baron with a touch of irony. After breakfast the dealer was announced, and the artist with his group. The sudden flush that reddened her daughter's face at once made the Baroness suspicious and then watchful, and the girl's confusion and the light in her eyes soon betrayed the mystery so badly guarded in her simple heart. Count Steinbock, dressed in black, struck the Baron as a very gentlemanly young man. "Would you undertake a bronze statue?" he asked, as he held up the group. After admiring it on trust, he passed it on to his wife, who knew nothing about sculpture. "It is beautiful, isn't it, mamma?" said Hortense in her mother' ear. "A statue! Monsieur, it is less difficult to execute a statue than to make a clock like this, which my friend here has been kind enough to bring," said the artist in reply. The dealer was placing on the dining-room sideboard the wax model of the twelve Hours that the Loves were trying to delay. "Leave the clock with me," said the Baron, astounded at the beauty of the sketch. "I should like to show it to the Ministers of the Interior and of Commerce." "Who is the young man in whom you take so much interest?" the Baroness asked her daughter. "An artist who could afford to execute this model could get a hundred thousand francs for it," said the curiosity-dealer, putting on a knowing and mysterious look as he saw that the artist and the girl were interchanging glances. "He would only need to sell twenty copies at eight thousand francs each--for the materials would cost about a thousand crowns for each example. But if each copy were numbered and the mould destroyed, it would certainly be possible to meet with twenty amateurs only too glad to possess a replica of such a work." "A hundred thousand francs!" cried Steinbock, looking from the dealer to Hortense, the Baron, and the Baroness.