Wednesday the marriage contract will be read.

Thursday a grand dinner-party.

Friday an exhibition of the marriage presents; Saturday a day of rest; Sunday the publication of the banns, and at the end of the following week the marriage will take place." Mademoiselle Marie listened to her father's determination with intense horror.
"For pity's sake, my dear father, be serious," cried she.
M.de Puymandour paid no attention to her entreaty, but added, as an afterthought: "Perhaps you would wish to know the name of the gentleman I have selected as a husband for you.

He is the Marquis Norbert, the son and heir of the Duke de Champdoce." Marie turned deadly pale.
"But I do not know him; I have never seen him," faltered she.
"_I_ know him, and that is quite sufficient.

I have often told you that you should be a duchess, and I mean to keep my word." Marie's affection for George de Croisenois was much deeper than she had told her father, much deeper even than she had dared to confess to herself, and she resented this disposal of her with more obstinacy than any one knowing her gentle nature would have supposed her capable of; but M.de Puymandour was not the man to give up for an instant the object which he had sworn to attain.