‘Celeste lives like a grand lady now,’ cried the innkeeper’s wife, on being questioned.  ’She will have me take her coffee to her in bed each morning.’

‘The wages she has saved will not hold out long,’ said the visitors.

’When that is finished she gives us her note of hand for the money she will get when she is married.  She has shown us the notary’s letter.  It is certainly a tidy sum she will have, and our son has some thoughts of marrying.’

They saw Celeste, who was radiant; they saw young Fernand, who was paying his court to her.  They returned home satisfied.

It was not long after that when one morning Celeste came into Madame Verine’s house; she was weeping on account of the loss of some of her money.  She had come up to town, she said, to buy her wedding clothes, for which the notary had been so good as to advance her a hundred francs, but her pocket had been picked in the train.  The money was gone—­quite gone—­alas!

So tearful was she that they lent her some money—­not much, but a little.  Then she dried her eyes, and said she would also get some things on credit, promising to pay in a month, for it was then she was to be married.  At the end of the day she came back gaily to show her treasures.

‘When the rejoicings of your wedding are over,’ said Madame Verine, ’and your husband brings you to town to claim the money, you may stay here in the upper room of this house—­it is an invitation.’

In a month came the wedding pair, joyful and blooming.  The Russian lady made them a supper.  They lodged in an attic room that Madame Verine rented.  In the morning they went out, dressed in their best, to see the notary.

An hour later Madame Verine sat in her little salon.  The floor was of polished wood; it shone in the morning light; so did all the polished curves of the chairs and cabinets.  Marie was practising exercises on the piano.

They heard a heavy step on the stair.  The bridegroom came into the room, agitated, unable to ask permission to enter.  He strode across the floor and sat down weakly before the ladies.

They thought he had been drinking wine, but this was not so, although his eye was bloodshot and his voice unsteady.

‘Can you believe it!’ he cried, ’the notary never wrote letters to her; there was no aunt; there is no money!’

‘It is incredible,’ said Madame Verine, and then there was a pause of great astonishment.

‘It is impossible!’ cried the Russian lady, who had come in.

‘It is true,’ said the bridegroom hoarsely; and he wept.

And now Celeste herself came into the house.  She came within the room, and looked at the ladies, who stood with hands upraised, and at her weeping husband.  If you have ever enticed a rosy-faced child to bathe in the sea, and seen it stand half breathless, half terrified, yet trying hard to be brave, you know just the expression that was on the face of the child-like deceiver.  With baby-like courage she smiled upon them all.