You can bring him hither to me." "Ah, sir, I had hoped--" Lucille stopped suddenly.
"What, my young friend ?" "That I might have had the triumph of bringing you to Malines.

I know, sir, what you are about to say, and I know, sir, your time must be very valuable; but I am not so poor as I seem, and Eugene, that is, M.St.
Amand, is very rich, and--and I have at Bruxelles what I am sure is a large sum; it was to have provided for the wedding, but it is most heartily at your service, sir." Le Kain smiled; he was one of those men who love to read the human heart when its leaves are fair and undefiled; and, in the benevolence of science, he would have gone a longer journey than from Louvain to Malines to give sight to the blind, even had St.Amand been a beggar.
"Well, well," said he, "but you forget that M.St.Amand is not the only one in the world who wants me.

I must look at my notebook, and see if I can be spared for a day or two." So saying, he glanced at his memoranda.

Everything smiled on Lucille; he had no engagements that his partner could not fulfil, for some days; he consented to accompany Lucille to Malines.
Meanwhile, cheerless and dull had passed the time to St.Amand.He was perpetually asking Madame le Tisseur what hour it was,--it was almost his only question.

There seemed to him no sun in the heavens, no freshness in the air, and he even forbore his favourite music; the instrument had lost its sweetness since Lucille was not by to listen.
It was natural that the gossips of Malines should feel some envy at the marriage Lucille was about to make with one whose competence report had exaggerated into prodigal wealth, whose birth had been elevated from the respectable to the noble, and whose handsome person was clothed, by the interest excited by his misfortune, with the beauty of Antinous.