came to find, in performing that task of introspection, how
unimportant a person she was herself, she began to think that the
attempt might be made. 'I suppose it had better be so,' she had
said. What was she that she should stand in the way of so many
wishes? As she had worked for her bread in her uncle's house at
Granpere, so would she work for her bread in her husband's house at
Basle. No doubt there were other things to be joined to her work,--
things the thought of which dismayed her. She had fought against
them for a while; but, after all, what was she, that she should
trouble the world by fighting? When she got to Basle she would
endeavour to see that the bread should rise there, and the wine be
sufficient, and the supper such as her husband might wish it to be.

Was it not the manifest duty of every girl to act after this
fashion? Were not all marriages so arranged in the world around
her? Among the Protestants of Alsace, as she knew, there was some
greater latitude of choice than was ever allowed by the stricter
discipline of Roman Catholic education. But then she was a Roman
Catholic, as was her aunt; and she was too proud and too grateful to
claim any peculiar exemption from the Protestantism of her uncle.
She had resolved during those early hours of the morning that 'it
had better be so.' She thought that she could go through with it
all, if only they would not tease her, and ask her to wear her
Sunday frock, and force her to sit down with them at table. Let
them settle the day--with a word or two thrown in by herself to
increase the distance--and she would be absolutely submissive, on
condition that nothing should be required of her till the day should
come. There would be a bad week or two then while she was being
carried off to her new home; but she had looked forward and had told
herself that she would fill her mind with the care of one man's