This passage comes thirteen pages before the end of the novel. Had I been the editor, I should have insisted that this coda be placed at the very end. A HARD CASE THE GOLDEN LION OF GRANPERE Michel Voss is a hard case. His second wife's niece, Marie, and his son (by his first wife) George want to marry each other. Marie has lived in the Voss household since becoming an orphan at age fifteen, and now at age twenty she is quietly running the family inn, the Lion d'Or at Granpere. But Michel thinks his son, about twenty-five years of age, should prove himself in the world before marrying. "I won't have it, George," he declares, and his word is law. And thereby hangs the tale. Trollope loved the hard cases. Perhaps none was harder than Louis Trevelyan, whose terminal stubbornness was celebrated in _He Knew He was Right_. _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ revolves around the celebrated stubbornness of Josiah Crawley, the perpetual curate who walked miles through the mud to face down Bishop Proudie and his wife in a triumphant confrontation. Linda Tressel, in the novel bearing her name, falls victim to her Aunt Charlotte, a religious zealot who insists on a marriage that Linda refuses. Mr. Whittlestaff, in _An Old Man's Love_, resisted giving up his young fiancée to her young lover for long enough to make a short novel out of it. And there are others--strong characters whose steadfastness of purpose forces everyone else to bend or face a long struggle. We are told that Michel Voss might have agreed to his son's marriage to his niece if he had been consulted beforehand. As it was, when he hears of it, he immediately determines that it is improper. Considering it his duty to make arrangements for his niece's welfare, he arranges what he thinks to be a suitable match with a prospering--though a bit effeminate--young man who calls at the inn while trading in textiles. M. Urmand suffers in comparison to George in Marie's eyes; to her he is simply a "rich trader," while George is a "real man." Marie's relation to Michel, the master of the inn, is an interesting one. She supervises all that takes place at the supper table in the inn, "standing now close behind her uncle with both her hands upon his head; and she would often stand so after the supper was commenced, only moving to attend upon him, or to supplement the services of Peter and the maidservant when she perceived that they were becoming for a time inadequate to their duties." When urged by her uncle to sit at table next to Urmand, the anointed suitor, her only response is to gently pull his ears.