"Hey dear, bless the pretty child!—did I though?"
"Yes, yes, Marguerite; and you must tell them now—I say you must—I will have them. Nay, don't be afraid; I'll not tell them again, and nobody can overhear us here."
"But, my pretty pet, these stories——"
"Then there are stories—see, you can't deny it any longer; tell them, tell them to me all."
"Why, they are nothing but a pack of nonsense. You would laugh at me. It is only about monsieur's father, and the wonderful coach they say he left to his son."
"Well, be it what it may, let me have it."
"Well, then, my pretty bird, you shall have it as they told it to myself."
She looked into the next apartment, and having satisfied herself that it was vacant, and shut the door of communication, she prepared for her narrative.
We have clipped the redundancies and mended the inaccuracies of honest Marguerite's phraseology; but the substance and arrangement of the story is recorded precisely as she gave it herself.
"Monsieur's father, they say, began with a very little money, madame, and he made it more by—by—in short, by usury; I beg pardon, but they say so, madame; and so finding as he grew old that he had a great deal of gold, and wishing to have some one of his own flesh and blood to leave it to, when he should be dead and buried, he bethought him of getting a wife. He must have been a shrewd man, I need not tell you, to have made so much money, so he was determined not to make his choice without due consideration. Now there was a farmer near them, who had a pretty and innocent daughter, and after much cautious inquiry and patient study of her character, old money-bags resolved that she was excellently suited for his purpose."