“I will see you to-morrow evening. By that time I shall know, and I will
tell you, the name of the woman whom father is going to marry; for I
shall ask him who she is.”
She was spared that trouble. Next morning, the first words of the count
were,--
“Well, have you thought it over?”
She looked at him till he felt compelled to turn his head away; and then
she replied in a tone of resignation,--
“Father, you are master here. I should not tell you the truth, if I said
I was not going to suffer cruelly at the idea of a stranger coming here
to--But I shall receive her with all due respect.”
Ah! The count was not prepared for such a speedy consent.
“Do not speak of respect,” he said. “Tell me that you will be tender,
affectionate, and kind. Ah, if you knew her, Henrietta! She is an
angel.”
“What is her age?”
“Twenty-five.”
The count read in his daughter’s face that she thought his new wife much
too young for him; and therefore he added, quickly,--
“Your mother was two years younger when I married her.”
That was so; but he forgot that that was twenty years ago.
“However,” he added, “you will see her; I shall ask her to let me
present you to her. She _is_ a foreigner, of excellent family, very
rich, marvellously clever and beautiful; and her name is Sarah Brandon.”
That evening, when Henrietta told Daniel the name of her future
mother-in-law, he started with an air of utter despair, and said,--
“Great God! If Maxime de Brevan is not mistaken, that is worse than any
thing we could possibly anticipate.”