.

FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS FIRST RESULT.
The next day, Mademoiselle Cormon, packed into the old carriole with Josette, and looking like a pyramid on a vast sea of parcels, drove up the rue Saint-Blaise on her way to Prebaudet, where she was overtaken by an event which hurried on her marriage,--an event entirely unlooked for by either Madame Granson, du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, or Mademoiselle Cormon himself.

Chance is the greatest of all artificers.
The day after her arrival at Prebaudet, she was innocently employed, about eight o'clock in the morning, in listening, as she breakfasted, to the various reports of her keeper and her gardener, when Jacquelin made a violent irruption into the dining-room.
"Mademoiselle," he cried, out of breath, "Monsieur l'abbe sends you an express, the son of Mere Grosmort, with a letter.

The lad left Alencon before daylight, and he has just arrived; he ran like Penelope! Can't I give him a glass of wine ?" "What can have happened, Josette?
Do you think my uncle can be--" "He couldn't write if he were," said Josette, guessing her mistress's fears.
"Quick! quick!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon, as soon as she had read the first lines.

"Tell Jacquelin to harness Penelope--Get ready, Josette; pack up everything in half an hour.