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Updated: September 15, 2025
An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor's house, where all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed.
Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests, the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere, together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which preceded the ball. "I feel I am going," said the old man to the notary towards the close of the evening.
"If I don't settle this matter of the farm with you to-night," said Bongrand, "our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim, and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make. So if you don't take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut." "Why did you come to us, then?" said Zelie.
"Of course I know," said Madame Massin, "that the Abbe Chaperon is an honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we're done for. My husband is absolutely beside himself."
"Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn," said Madame Cremiere. In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted. "The old German is not dismissed, is he?" said Madame Massin. "He was there yesterday," replied Cabirolle. "Now," said Goupil, "you may as well give up counting on your inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than ever.
"Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?" said Madame Massin, rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the doctor's answer. "For the cure," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. "I have an idea! I'll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with Madame Minoret."
Massin therefore looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du Rouvre, a former client. "If I were sure of it!" he said. "You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest.
"It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we ought to talk of our affairs," said Zelie; "come home with me. You too, Monsieur Dionis," she added to the notary; "you'll not be in the way." Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post master was the news of the day.
Finding the house invaded by the three families, now masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection whatever, except so far as to fear the obstacles. "What are you doing here?" he said to Massin and Cremiere. "We can't leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but we can't camp here.
"Madame de Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
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