Arthault's only child was a son, who owed nothing to his father but the prospect of a fair inheritance, for he was little like him in form, and not at all in mind: he was a fine, manly, generous, and high-spirited youth--such as would have been thought too early born, had his appearance been made before the hereditary servility of his family was forgotten. The knight, too, had an only child, a daughter; who, in personal appearance and moral qualities, contrasted in as remarkable a manner with her father. She was little almost to a fault, in the standard of beauty, if there be such a thing; her form was moulded with a delicacy, which gave the idea of one of those aërial shapes that dance in the beam of poesy: and there was that gentle and refined playfulness of expression in her fair countenance, which artists have loved to picture in the nymphs of some silvan goddess, whose rudest employment is to chase one another on the green bank, or sport in the transparent wave. Guillaume loved the beautiful bourgeoise before he knew that such love was a condescension; and Amable, when, on being desired by her father to refuse her heart to Guillaume, she thought of inquiring whether she possessed such a thing at all, started with surprise to find that she had given it away to the knight's son long ago. But where was the use of repining? Guillaume was young, and handsome, and generous, and brave; and what harm could befall her heart in such keeping? Amable turned away from her father with a light laugh, and a light step, and stealing skippingly round the garden wall--for already the paternal prohibitions had gone forth--bounded towards a grove of wild shrubs at the farther end.