Dear Ursule, we live at a time when prejudice, which of old would have parted us, has no longer power enough to hinder our marriage. All the feelings of my heart are yours, and to your uncle I will give such guarantees as may assure him of your happiness. He does not know that I have loved you more in a few minutes than he has loved you in fifteen years!—Till this evening.
“See here, godfather!” said Ursule, holding out the letter with an impulse of pride.
“Ah! my child,” cried the doctor, after reading the letter, “I am more glad than you are. By this determination the Vicomte has made up for all his misdeeds.”
After dinner, Savinien called upon the doctor, who was just then walking with Ursule by the balustrade of the river-terrace. The Vicomte had received his clothes from Paris, and the lover had not omitted to enhance his personal advantages by dressing as carefully, as elegantly, as though it were to charm the handsome and haughty Comtesse de Kergarouët. On seeing him advance from the outside steps, the poor child clung to her uncle’s arm exactly as if she were trying to save herself from falling into an abyss, and the doctor heard the deep, hollow throbbing of her heart; it made him shudder.
“Leave us, my child,” he said to his ward, who went to sit down on the steps of the pavilion, after suffering Savinien to take her hand and kiss it respectfully.
“Monsieur, will you give that dear creature to a ship’s captain?” said the young Vicomte to the doctor in a low voice.
“No,” said Minoret with a smile, “we might have too long to wait, but—to a ship’s lieutenant.”
Tears of joy stood in the young man’s eyes, and he grasped the old man’s hand very warmly.
“Then I shall go,” he said, “to study, and try to learn in six months what the pupils of the naval college learn in six years.”
“Go?” cried Ursule, flying towards, them from the steps.
“Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. So, the more haste I put into it, the more affection I shall show for you.”
“Today is the 3rd of October,” said she, looking at him with infinite tenderness. “Start after the 19th.”
“Yes,” said the old man; “we will keep the feast of Saint-Savinien.”
“Then, goodbye,” exclaimed the youth. “I must spend this week in Paris to take the preliminary steps, make my preparations, and buy the books and the mathematical instruments I need; to make my way, too, in the minister’s good graces, and win the most favorable conditions possible.”
Ursule and her godfather went with Savinien to the gate. After seeing him go into his mother’s house, they saw him come out again, followed by Tiennette, carrying a little port manteau.
“Why, if you are rich, do you compel him to serve in the navy?” said Ursule to the doctor.
“I believe you will soon think it was I who contracted his debts!” said her uncle, smiling. “I do not compel him.—But, my darling, a uniform and the Cross of the Legion of Honor won in battle will wipe out many a smirch. In four years he may rise to command a ship, and that is all I ask of him.”
“But he may be killed,” she said, showing the doctor a white face.
“Lovers, like drunkards, have a Providence of their own,” replied the doctor lightly.
The poor child, unknown to her godfather, cut off at night enough of her beautiful long fair hair to make a chain; then, two days later, she persuaded her music-master, old Schmucke, to promise that he would see that the hair was not changed, and that the chain should be finished for the following Sunday.
On Savinien’s return, he informed the doctor and his ward that he had signed his papers; he was to be at Brest by the 25th. As the doctor invited him to dinner on the 18th, he spent almost the whole of two days at his house; and in spite of the most prudent warnings, the lovers could not hinder themselves from betraying their mutual understanding to the curé, the Justice, the town doctor, and La Bougival.
“Children,” said the old man, “you are risking your happiness by not keeping the secret to yourselves.”
At last, on the fête day, after mass, during which they had exchanged glances, Savinien, watched for by Ursule, crossed the street and came into the little garden, where they found themselves almost alone. To indulge them, the good man sat reading his paper in the Chinese pavilion.
“Dear Ursule,” said Savinien, “will you give me a greater boon than my mother could if she were to give me life a second time?”
“I know what you would ask me,” said Ursule, interrupting him. “Here, this is my answer,” she added, as she took out of the pocket of her apron the chain made of her hair, and gave it him with a nervous trembling that betrayed her excessive Joy. “Wear this for my sake,” she said. “May my gift avert from you every peril by reminding you that my life is one with yours!”
“Ah, the little rogue! she is giving him a chain of her hair,” said the doctor to himself. “How could she do it? Cut her beautiful fair hair!—Why, she would give him my blood!”
“And will you think it very odious of me if I ask you, before we part, to give me your formal promise that you will never have any husband but me?” said Savinien, kissing the chain, and looking at Ursule, while he could not restrain one tear.
“If I have not told you so too plainly already—I who went to gaze at the walls of a prison when you were inside,” she answered with a deep blush, “I repeat it now, Savinien, I shall never love anyone but you, and will never marry anyone else.”
Seeing that Ursule was half-hidden
