“Then go your way, sir, and make the best you can of it with the young lady. I will speak myself with the sieur d’Argenson to-night; and I do not despair any more than you do, Raoul. But look you, boy, you do not fancy, I hope, that you are going to church with your lady-love to-morrow or the next day! Two or three years hence, at the earliest, will be all in very good time. You must serve a campaign or two first, in order to show that you know how to use your sword.” “In all things, my dear father, I shall endeavor to fulfil your wishes, knowing them to be as kindly as they are wise and prudent. I owe you gratitude for every hour since I was born, but for none so much as for this, for indeed you are going to make me the happiest of men.” “Away with you then, Sir Happiness! Betake yourself on the wings of love to your bright lady; and mind the advice of your favorite, Horace, to pluck the pleasures of the passing hour, mindful how short is the sum of mortal life!” The young man embraced his father gayly, and left the room with a quick step and a joyous heart; and the jingling of his spurs, and the quick, merry clash of his scabbard on the marble staircase, told how joyously he descended its steps. A moment afterward his father heard the clear, sonorous tones of his fine voice calling to his attendants, and yet a few seconds later the lively clatter of his horse’s hoofs on the resounding pavement. “Alas for the happy days of youth, which are so quickly flown!” exclaimed the father, as he participated in the hopeful and exulting mood of his noble boy; “and alas for the promise of mortal happiness, which is so oft deceitful and a traitress!” He paused for a few moments, and seemed to ponder, and then added, with a confident and proud expression: “But I see not why one should forebode aught but success and happiness to this noble boy of mine. Thus far, everything has worked toward the end as I would wish it. They have fallen in love naturally and of their own accord, and D’Argenson, whether he like it or not, can not help himself. He must needs accede proudly and joyfully, to my proposal; he knows his estates to be in my power far too deeply to resist. Nay, more--though he be somewhat selfish, and ambitious, and avaricious, I know nothing of him that should justify me in believing that he would sell his daughter’s honor, even to a king, for wealth or title! My good wife is all too doubtful and suspicious.--But, hark! here comes the mob, returning from that unfortunate man’s execution! I wonder how he bore it?”