therefore leave to you the happiness of preparing my dear angels for my return. I have had enough of commerce; and I am resolved to leave Havre. My intention is to buy back the estate of La Bastie, and to entail it, so as to establish an estate yielding at least a hundred thousand francs a year, and then to ask the king to grant that one of my sons-in-law may succeed to my name and title. You know, my poor Dumay, what a terrible misfortune overtook us through the fatal reputation of a large fortune,--my daughter's honor was lost. I have therefore resolved that the amount of my present fortune shall not be known. I shall not disembark at Havre, but at Marseilles. I shall sell my indigo, and negotiate for the purchase of La Bastie through the house of Mongenod in Paris. I shall put my funds in the Bank of France and return to the Chalet giving out that I have a considerable fortune in merchandise. My daughters will be supposed to have two or three hundred thousand francs. To choose which of my sons-in-law is worthy to succeed to my title and estates and to live with us, is now the object of my life; but both of them must be, like you and me, honest, loyal, and firm men, and absolutely honorable.
My dear old fellow, I have never doubted you for a moment. We have gone through wars and commerce together and now we will undertake agriculture; you shall be my bailiff. You will like that, will you not? And so, old friend, I leave it to your discretion to tell what you think best to my wife and daughters; I rely upon your prudence. In four years great changes may have taken place in their characters.
Adieu, my old Dumay. Say to my daughters and to my wife that I
have never failed to kiss them in my thoughts morning and evening since I left them. The second check for forty thousand francs herewith enclosed is for my wife and children.
Till we meet.--Your colonel and friend, Charles Mignon.
"Your father is coming," said Madame Mignon to her daughter.
"What makes you think so, mamma?" asked Modeste.
"Nothing else could make Dumay hurry himself."
"Victory! victory!" cried the lieutenant as soon as he reached the garden gate. "Madame, the colonel has not been ill a moment; he is coming back--coming back on the 'Mignon,' a fine ship of his own, which together with its cargo is worth, he tells me, eight or nine hundred thousand francs. But he requires secrecy from all of us; his heart is still wrung by the misfortunes of our dear departed girl."
"He has still to learn her death," said Madame Mignon.
"He attributes her disaster, and I think he is right, to the rapacity of young men after great fortunes. My poor colonel expects to find the lost sheep here. Let us be happy among ourselves but say nothing to any one, not even to Latournelle, if that is possible. Mademoiselle,"
he whispered in Modeste's ear, "write to your father and tell him of his loss and also the terrible results on your mother's health and eyesight; prepare him for the shock he has to meet. I will engage to get the letter into his hands before he reaches Havre, for he will have to pass through Paris on his way. Write him a long letter; you have plenty of time. I will take the letter on Monday; Monday I shall probably go to Paris."
Modeste was so afraid that Canalis and Dumay would meet that she started hastily for the house to write to her poet and put off the rendezvous.
"Mademoiselle," said Dumay, in a very humble manner and barring Modeste's way, "may your father find his daughter with no other feelings in her heart than those she had for him and for her mother before he was obliged to leave her."
"I have sworn to myself, to my sister, and to my mother to be the joy, the consolation, and the glory of my father, and I SHALL KEEP MY
OATH!" replied Modeste with a haughty and disdainful glance at Dumay.
"Do not trouble my delight in the thought of my father's return with insulting suspicions. You cannot prevent a girl's heart from beating--
you don't want me to be a mummy, do you?" she said. "My hand belongs to my family, but my heart is my own. If I love any one, my father and my mother will know it. Does that satisfy you, monsieur?"
"Thank you, mademoiselle; you restore me to life," said Dumay, "but you might still call me Dumay, even when you box my ears!"
"Swear to me," said her mother, "that you have not engaged a word or a look with any young man."
"I can swear that, my dear mother," said Modeste, laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl.
"She must be false indeed if you are right," cried Dumay, when Modeste had left them and gone into the house.
"My daughter Modeste may have faults," said her mother, "but falsehood is not one of them; she is incapable of saying what is not true."
"Well! then let us feel easy," continued Dumay, "and believe that misfortune has closed his account with us."
"God grant it!" answered Madame Mignon. "You will see HIM, Dumay; but I shall only hear him. There is much of sadness in my joy."
