Village books

But the grief which was dragging her to the grave was far
other than these visible sorrows. The caustic that was slowly eating
into her heart lay beneath a stone in the little graveyard of
Ingouville, on which was inscribed:--
BETTINA CAROLINE MIGNON
Died aged twenty-two.
Pray for her.
This inscription is to the young girl whom it covered what many
another epitaph has been for the dead lying beneath them,--a table of
contents to a hidden book. Here is the book, in its dreadful brevity;
and it will explain the oath exacted and taken when the colonel and
the lieutenant bade each other farewell.
A young man of charming appearance, named Charles d'Estourny, came to
Havre for the commonplace purpose of being near the sea, and there he
saw Bettina Mignon. A "soi-disant" fashionable Parisian is never
without introductions, and he was invited at the instance of a friend
of the Mignons to a fete given at Ingouville. He fell in love with
Bettina and with her fortune, and in three months he had done the work
of seduction and enticed her away.


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