A young girl of his own
age had been destined for him by his parents and by hers, and she was
to become his wife at once if--if--and ever uppermost to cloud all his
prospects came that fatal _if_--if he should draw a lucky number at
the conscription. But what if he should not? How could he ask her to
wait for him seven years? or how, indeed, could he expect that her
friends would allow her to do so? They were poor people, as he knew,
and it was but natural that they should wish to see their daughter
speedily settled. This thought filled the unhappy boy with despair;
and as the twentieth of February, the day appointed for the
conscription, approached, he was almost beside himself with anxiety.
For a long while his father and his mother, trusting to their arms and
their economy, had lived in the hope of being able to buy him off. Two
thousand three hundred francs were needed to do this, and neither hard
work, self-denial nor thrift had been spared to collect the money; but
it was a large sum, and notwithstanding all the hard toil of father
and son, and all the frugality of the mother, they had not been able
in five years' time to collect more than two-thirds of it.
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