"Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the day of
your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of the health
which you now enjoy?"

He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were rare in
Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed her on each
side of her neck with a complacency that made her blush. The
president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his courtship
was progressing.

"Don't stand on ceremony," said Grandet, entering. "How well you do
things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!"

"When it concerns mademoiselle," said the abbe, armed with his own
bouquet, "every day is a fete-day for my nephew."

The abbe kissed Eugenie's hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he boldly
kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: "How we sprout up, to be sure!
Every year is twelve months."

As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who never
forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he thought
them funny, said,--

"As this is Eugenie's birthday let us illuminate."

He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a socket on
each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with paper twisted
round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made it firm, lit it, and