“A treasure! Yes, indeed, you have spoken the truth!” replied the noble woman, fixing on her interlocutor a look radiant with joy, happiness, and confidence; “and as you make me so happy, my brave Maubars, in speaking as you do, I am not ashamed to confess I have often thought--have often feared--well, don’t blame me; nothing, you know, is so restless and timid as a mother--I have feared that a dowry so small could not respond to the legitimate views of a young man like Alfred, who can aspire to the best match in the country. I dare not tell you how this secret doubt has tortured my heart. It would have been so painful, so frightful to think that my want of foresight might have prepared so bitter a disappointment for my dearly loved Valentine.” “And who speaks of disappointment, cowardly mamma that you are?” replied M. Maubars, with the good hearty laugh of the retired successful merchant. “Of course I do not mean that any dowry is to be despised, and, I will add, if this were larger, it were so much the better. But the moment that the question is between it and you and Valentine, Alfred and I will accept what you have in all confidence. Let there be no more mention of these things between us any more than there is just now in the conversation of that happy couple smiling and babbling among the roses.” “How good you are, Maubars,” replied the adopted mother with a sigh 218 of relief. “Assuredly,” she continued with a sweet and mischievous smile, “I am very sure that it is not with dowry or business that they are entertaining themselves just now.” This you may be assured of, my readers, for, just then, Valentine, spreading into a sweet smile her fine and delicate lips, while her brilliant eyes sparkled above the cheeks as rounded and satiny as the petals of her roses, said to her partner, who was coming toward her: “You had better believe me, Mr. Alfred. We will not go to Paris. Paris is very far off, and it costs a great deal to go there. But we will go every evening and see dear papa in his little pavilion at Vaux. Won’t it be charming to do just as we did when we were little, ten years ago, just us two alone, you and I, running through the ruts and the fields, gathering the new hay and the herbs covered with dew?” And the simple child, clapping her white hands, gently smiled still more joyously at the innocent, truant projects with which she proposed to inaugurate their future housekeeping. Then, Alfred having offered his arm, she accepted it a moment in order to adjust with her young intended some other detail of great importance, which she must tell her mamma immediately--mamma holding her breath meanwhile, hearing vaguely the murmur of the wind in the arbor and smiling with tenderness as her child approached.