The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-01-10


Joined them in the hall or on the stone
benches of the courtyard round the
half-choked fountain. There was some
thing about her that the duke had
never observed before. That virgin air
of Innocence and truth rendered her
illimitably remote and sacred. When
he saw M. Etienne at last making more
bold and walking beside her in the
garden, he fancied she was hearing of
the glories of the house of Beauylieux
and the excellence of the duke, as he
knew M. Etienne sounded them to the
old baron.
Somehow the duke could not make
the headway here that M. Etienne did.
The wall was not one to be broken
down as with some other woman. He
saw there was but one course for him.
And his impatience getting the better
of caution, of any thought of second
nuptials with princely houses and great
dots, he made proposals to the as
founded and well-pleased baron for his
daughters hand and an immediate
| marriage.
1t was not to be thought that the
Baron Rene Vaux, even at the prospect
hesitate before the offer of such a bril-
liant future for his only child; and he
straightway told her to put herself in
readiness, since the matter was ar
ranged. There was no disinclination
on his daughters part; and surely no
prettier bridal procession that hers
ever wound up the mountain to the
chapel, she seated on her gray don
key, around whose neck Olympic had
hung a wreath of roses-the chances of
lunching presently on which he was
calculating with his long ears, NJ.
IItienne leading him and walking by
her side, her father and the duke fol-
lowing on foot and Ambrose and
Olympic bringing up the rear. AS
they all stood before the altar it was
she turned to M. Etienne. But her
father, leaning on his staff just be-
hind, stretched forward his long, gaunt
hand and took hers and placed it in
| the hand of the duke, where it seemed
to that gentleman like melting snow
flake. She had thought, until that
moment, that it was M. Etienne who
was the duke. An accident of introduce
tion, the fact of her ignorance Of cor
rect phrases and her habit of using
| none, and perhaps some natural bias as
WELL We're responsible for the mistake.
But what did it signify to we'll
bred and dutiful young girl? Obedient
to tradition and discipline, she quietly
accepted the duke Tor her husband. She
had mo other choice, indeed; and the
| I,,lya Do, ,,;. I,
chess with him.
And when she had accustomed her.
self to her fate, beginning with being
charmed by the delights of the life
her husband gave her, and by the
prodigality that contrasted with the
simplicity of her poor home. she ended
by sincere affection for the knightly
| gentleman, and held the house of Sara
zines BeauXlieuX as something greater
than the house of France itself.
And when her son was born she
seemed to forget she had any share in
him herself, so proud and glad was she
over this concentration and com
| pleton, this crystallization in one OF
all the glories of the house of Sara
zines Beauxlieux Only when she saw
how black was his hair, how dark
his splendid baby loveliness, she had
an aching self-remembrance that halt
| the blood in the little princeling was
her own, and that somewhere in heI
| own line was peasant strain to which
she owed her beauty. For years she
| watched the child lest the strain should
anywhere appear, and half the teaching
| that she gave him was concerning the
greatness of his ancestry, the might
ness of his inheritance of renown, the
grandeur it had given him and the
duty he owed it in turn.
| So absorbed was she in the magnitude
and virtue of her husbands house, that
even the downfall of the king gave the
young duchess but little concern since
in her estimation there could be nc
downfall for the Dues des BeauXlieuX
and even when, after the many agita
tions, the new empire was proclaimed
she regarded it as all disturbance
that would presently compose itself
| For the sake of her fathers love of tn,
Corsican, as the duke phrased it, sh,
might herself have looked with favol
on the imperial order of things; but i
his past, remained u violent partisan o.
the dethroned king, for her to shut her
self up in superb seclusion from tn,
canaille Of the new riches and power.
And perhaps by strengthening his ar
rant contempt for the new people, tn.
duchess herself, and all unwittingly
was in some measure the means of as
sisting the duke into the obscurity t,
which he presently found it best to re
tire.
There had been a grand occasion a
the opera, to which the empress ha,
given the exquisite charm and radiance
of her presence, and the leaders among
the women of the royalist part,
had urged the duke that tn
duchess might appear and shov
that woman" as they always callet
her, that queen of farce, what tn
grande dame really was. And, Ell
tirely ignorant of their purpose, tn
duchess had, of course, assented to he
husbands wish.
(To Be Continued)