countess, if I will only promise to endow you with half a million."

The habitually pale countenance of Elise suddenly assumed life and
color. She drew herself up and threw her head proudly back.

"Do you wish to sell me, father? Do you wish to give some value to
this noble nonentity by the present of half a million, and will his
lordship be kind enough in return to take the trifling burden of my
person into the bargain?"

Her father gazed at her glowing countenance with eyes beaming with
joy; but he quickly suppressed this emotion, and reassumed a serious
air.

"Yes," he said, "the good count, in consideration of half a million,
will consent to raise the manufacturer's daughter to the rank of a
countess. But for a whole million we can obtain still more; we can
rise yet higher in the scale. If I will advance his uncle, Prince
Saldem, half a million to redeem his mortgaged estates, the prince
promises to adopt the nephew, your suitor, as his son. You would
then be a princess, Elise, and I would have the proud satisfaction of
calling a prince my son."

"As if the king would consent to a nobleman thus demeaning himself!"
cried Elise; "as if he would graciously allow the count so far to
degrade himself!"

"Oh, the king will consent," continued her father in a light tone.
"You know that he is fond of me. Only say whether you consent to
become Countess Saldem."