He went on. My mother suggested, that as the period of mourning for my brother was over (alas! wishing to conceal that event from Eugenie I had not worn any), it was time to look into the affairs of a family of which I was now become the head. She advised me to resign my commission in the Gardes du Corps as an idle sort of life without any chance of promotion, and, as if she had read my thoughts, added, that I had nothing to do but to enjoy my wealth and at the same time increase it, for which there was a ready mode and present opportunity. It was this. She had selected for my brother the best match in the county--the marriage was fixed, the settlements agreed upon, and the contract drawn, when his death deranged all; why should not I carry into effect so well-formed and advantageous a plan? The young lady in question had known but little of my brother; she had no attachment to him, and merely married him because her family wished it. She was, moreover, young, pretty, and very rich. My mother urged me to quit Paris without delay, and come and secure a match which would double my fortune. Being thirty years of age, and completely my own master, I did not consider obedience, especially in such a matter, a duty I owed to the commands even of a mother; but I saw in the proposal an opportunity which might never again offer of breaking bonds which every day became tighter, and more and more wounded my pride. Besides, the _money_, the _money_ tempted me. "Why," said I to myself, "should I not be able to love this pretty girl whom they propose I should marry? She is, perhaps, even handsomer than Mademoiselle d'Ermay; and who knows but she may love as well, and without subjecting me to that sort of sway I feel so onerous?" I reflected, too, on the false position in which I was placed. I lived with a mistress, of whom I was not the first lover, but only the second. Nevertheless, I knew Mademoiselle d'Ermay's character so well, was so fully assured of her inviolate fidelity, and still felt so much attached to her, that I could not make up my mind one way or the other, and was in a most lamentable state of indecision. I had without much difficulty thus far concealed from her the death of my brother; but if I absented myself and went into Dauphiné, though only just to look at the lady proposed for my wife, she would guess all, and, on my return, my contemplated abandonment would be repaid by her taking leave of me for ever. Some plausible pretext for leaving her was therefore necessary--a mission, or something of the sort, from government, on business in the north of France, whilst I hastened to the south, and tried to find in the love beaming from other eyes a release from that which had hitherto chained me to Paris. The absolute necessity of concealing this new secret made me a totally different man to what I was wont to be. I became moody and abstracted; and, whilst brooding in silence over my own thoughts, and fondly fancying that I