Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/259

 left in the drawing-room but Savinien, Bongrand and the Abbé Chaperon, the old doctor pointed to Ursule, charming in her ball dress, who was just saying good-bye to the young Mesdemoiselles Crémière and Massin, and said:

“It is to you, my friends, that I entrust her! In a few days I shall no longer be here to protect her; stand, all of you, between her and the world, until she is married.—I am afraid for her!”

These words made a painful impression. The account, which was made up several days afterward in a family council, showed that Doctor Minoret was short ten thousand six hundred francs, partly as arrears of the stock receipt of fourteen hundred francs a year, the acquisition of which was accounted for by the employment of Captain de Jordy’s legacy, and partly by the little capital of five thousand francs coming from gifts that, for fifteen years, the doctor had made to his ward on their respective fête-days or birthdays.