If Julie has a pretty foot, a
_svelte_ waist, and can play the piano thunderingly, or sing in the
charmingest soprano, her ten thousand francs are quite as acceptable as
those of stout awkward, glum-faced Jeannette. The faultless boots and
yellow kids of young Adolphe counterbalance the somewhat apocryphal
vicomte of ill-kempt and ill-attired Henri.
But then there must be _some_ fortune. A Frenchman is so much in the
habit of expecting it, that he thinks it almost a crime to fall in love
where there is none. Francoise, pretty, clever, agreeable as she was,
was penniless, and even worse, she was the daughter of a man who had
been imprisoned on suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her
livelihood by needlework. All these considerations made the fancy of the
merry abbe less ridiculous, and Francoise herself, being sufficiently
versed in the ways of the world to understand the disadvantage under
which she laboured, was less amazed and disgusted than another girl
might have been, when, in due course, the cripple offered her himself
and his dumb-waiter. He had little more to give--his pension, a tiny
income from his prebend and his Marquisat de Quinet.
The offer of the little man was not so amusing as other episodes of his
life.
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