"Is that place far from Etiolles?" asked Jack, with a start.

"O, no, close by," answered the gentleman, giving a friendly cut with his whip to his beast.

What a fatality for Jack! Had he not told the falsehood, he could have gone on in this comfortable carriage, have rested his poor little weary legs, and had a comfortable sleep, wrapped in the good woman's shawl, who asked him, every little while, if he was warm enough.

If he could but summon courage enough to say, "I have told you a falsehood; I am going to the same place that you are;" but he was unwilling to incur the contempt and distrust of these good people; yet, when they told him that they had reached Villeneuve, the child could not restrain a sob.

"Do not cry, my little friend," said the kind woman; "your mother, perhaps, is not so ill as you think, and the sight of you will make her well."

At the last house the carriage stopped.

"Yes, this is it," said Jack, sadly. The good people said a kind good-bye. "How lucky you are to have finished your journey," said the woman; "we have four good leagues before us."

Little Jack had the same, but durst not say so. He went toward the garden-gate. "Good night," said his new friends, "good night."

He answered in a voice choked by tears, and the carriage turned toward the right. Then the child, overwhelmed with vain regrets, ran after it with all his speed; but his limbs, weakened instead of strengthened by inadequate repose, refused all service. At the end of a few rods he could go no further, but sank on the roadside with a burst of passionate tears, while the hospitable proprietors of the carriage rolled comfortably on, without an idea of the despair they had left behind them.

He was cold, the earth was wet. No matter for that; he was too weary to think or to feel. The wind blows violently, and soon the poor little boy sleeps quietly. A frightful noise awakens him. Jack starts up and sees something monstrous—a howling, snorting beast, with two fiery eyes that send forth a shower of sparks. The creature dashed past, leaving behind him a train like a comet's tail. A grove of trees, quite unsuspected by Jack, suddenly flashed out clearly; each leaf could have been counted. Not until this apparition was far away, and nothing of it was visible save a small green light, did Jack know that it was the express train.

What time was it? How long had he slept? He knew not, but he felt ill and stiff in every limb. He had dreamed of Madou,—dreamed that they lay side by side in the cemetery; he saw Madou's face, and shivered at the thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from this idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened in the cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so unnaturally heavy, that he fancied Madou was at his side or behind him.

The child passes through a slumbering village; a clock strikes two. Another village, another clock, and three was sounded. Still the boy plods on, with swimming head and burning feet. He dares not stop. Occasionally he meets a huge covered wagon, driver and horses sound asleep. He asks, in a timid, tired voice, "Is it far now to Etiolles?" No answer comes save a loud snore.

Soon, however, another traveller joins the child—a traveller whose praises are sung by the cheery crowing of the cocks, and the gurgles of the frogs in the pond. It is the dawn. And the child shares the anxiety of expectant nature, and breathlessly awaits the coming of the new-born day.

Suddenly, directly in front of him, in the direction in which lay the town where his mother was, the clouds divide—are torn apart suddenly, as it were; a pale line of light is first seen; this line gradually broadens, with a waving light like flames. Jack walks toward this light with a strength imparted by incipient delirium.

Something tells him that his mother is waiting there for him, waiting to welcome him after this horrible night. The sky was now clear, and looked like a large blue eye, dewy with tears and full of sweetness. The road no longer dismayed the child. Besides, it was a smooth highway, without ditch or pavement, intended, it seemed, for the carriages of the wealthy. Superb residences, with grounds carefully kept, were on both sides of this road. Between the white houses and the vineyards were green lawns that led down to the river, whose surface reflected the tender blue and rosy tints of the sky above. O sun, hasten thy coming; warm and comfort the little child, who is so weary and so sad!

"Am I far from Etiolles?" asked Jack of some laborers who were going to their work.

"No, he was not far from Etiolles; he had but to follow the road straight on through the wood."

The wood was all astir now, resounding with the chirping of birds and the rustling of squirrels. The refrain of the birds in the hedge of wild roses was repeated from the topmost branches of the century-old oak-trees; the branches shook and bent under the sudden rush of winged creatures; and while the last of the shadows faded away, and the night-birds with silent, heavy flight hurried to their mysterious shelters, a lark suddenly rises from the field with its wings wide-spread, and flies higher and higher until it is lost in the sky above. The child no longer walks, he crawls; an old woman meets him, leading a goat; mechanically he asks if it is far to Etiolles.

The ragged creature looks at him ferociously, and then points out a little stony path. The sunshine warms the little fellow, who stumbles over the pebbles, for he has no strength to lift his feet. At last he sees a steeple and a cluster of houses; one more effort, and he will reach them. But he is dizzy and falls; through his half-shut eyes he sees close at hand a little house covered with vines and roses. Over the door, between the wavering shadows of a lilac-tree already in flower, he saw an inscription in gold letters:—

PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.

How pretty the house was, bathed in the fresh morning light! All the blinds are still closed, although the dwellers in the cottages are awake, for he hears a woman's voice singing,—singing, too, his own cradle-song, in a fresh, gay voice. Was he dreaming? The blinds were thrown open, and a woman appeared in a white negligee, with her hair lightly twisted in a simple knot.

"Mamma, mamma!" cried Jack, in a weak voice.

The lady turned quickly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and saw the poor little worn and travel-stained lad.

She screamed "Jack!" and in a moment more was beside him, warming him in her arms, caressing and soothing the little fellow, who sobbed out the anguish of that terrible night on her shoulder.



CHAPTER IX.~~PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.

"No, no, Jack; no, dear child; do not be alarmed, you shall never go back to that school. Did they dare to strike you? Cheer up, dear. I tell you that you shall never go there again, but shall always be with me. I will arrange a little room for you to-day, and you will see how nice it is to be in the country. We have cows and chickens, and that reminds me the poultry has not yet been fed. Lie down, dear, and rest a while. I will wake you at dinner-time, but first drink this soup. It is good, is it not? And to think that while I was calmly sleeping, you were alone in the cold and dark night. I must go. My chickens are calling me;" and with a loving kiss Ida went off on tiptoe, happy and bright, browned somewhat by the sun, and dressed with rather a theatrical idea of the proprieties. Her country costume had a great deal of black velvet about it, and she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, trimmed with poppies and wheat.

Jack could not sleep, but his bath and the soup prepared by Mere Archambauld, his mother's cook, had restored his strength to a very great degree, and he lay on the couch, looking about him with calm, satisfied eyes.

There was but little of the old luxury. The room he was in was large, furnished in the style of Louis XVI., all gray and white, without the least gilding. Outside, the rustling of the leaves, the cooing of the pigeons on the roof, and his mother's voice talking to her chickens, lulled him to repose.

One thing troubled him: D'Argenton's portrait hung at the foot of the bed, in a pretentious attitude, his hand on an open book.

The child said to himself, "Where is he? Why have I not seen him?" Finally, annoyed by the eyes of the picture, which seemed to pursue him either with a question or a reproach, he rose and went down to his mother.

She was busy in the farm-yard; her gloves reached above her elbows, and her dress, looped on one side, showed her wide striped skirt and high heels.

Mere Archambauld laughed at her awkwardness. This woman was the wife of an employe in the government forests, who attended to the culinary department at Aulnettes, as the house was called where Jack's mother lived.

"Heavens! how pretty your boy is!" said the old woman, delighted by Jack's appearance.

"Is he not, Mere Archambauld? What did I tell you?"

"But he looks a good deal more like you, madame, than like his papa. Good day, my dear! May I give you a kiss?"

At the word papa, Jack looked up quickly.

"Ah, well! if you can't sleep, let us go and look at the house," said his mother, who quickly wearied of every occupation. She shook down her skirts, and took the child over this most original house, which was situated a stone's throw from the village, and realized better than most poets' dreams those of D'Argenton. The house had been originally a shooting-box belonging to a distant chateau. A new tower had been added, and a weathercock, which last gave an aspect of intense respectability to the place. They visited the stable and the orchard, and finished their examination by a visit to the tower.

A winding staircase, lighted by a skylight of colored glass, led to a large, round room containing four windows, and furnished by a circular divan covered with some brilliant Eastern stuff. A couple of curious old oaken chests, a Venetian mirror, some antique hangings, and a high carved chair of the time of Henri II., drawn up in front of an enormous table covered with papers, composed the furniture of the apartment. A charming landscape was visible from the windows, a valley and a river, a fresh green wood, and some fair meadow-land.

"It is here that HE works," said his mother, in an awed tone.

Jack had no need to ask who this HE might be.

In a low voice, as if in a sanctuary, she continued, without looking at her son,—

"At present he is travelling. He will return in a few days, however. I shall write to him that you are here; he will be very glad, for he is very fond of you, and is the best of men, even if he does look a little severe sometimes. You must learn to love him, little Jack, or I shall be very unhappy."

As she spoke she looked at D'Argenton's picture hung at the end of this room, a picture of which the one in her room was a copy; in fact, a portrait of the poet was in every room, and a bronze bust in the entrance-hall, and it was a most significant fact that there was no other portrait than his in the whole house. "You promise me, Jack, that you will love him?"

Jack answered with much effort, "I promise, dear mamma."

This was the only cloud on that memorable day. The two were so happy in that quaint old drawing-room. They heard Mere Archambauld rattling her dishes in the kitchen. Outside of the house there was not a sound. Jack sat and admired his mother. She thought him much grown and very large for his age, and they laughed and kissed each other every few minutes. In the evening they had some visitors. Pere Archambauld came for his wife, as he always did, for they lived in the depths of the forest. He took a seat in the dining-room.

"You will drink a glass of wine, Father Archambauld. Drink to the health of my little boy. Is he not nice? Will you take him with you sometimes into the forest?"

And as he drank his wine, this tawny giant, who was the terror of the poachers throughout the country, looked about the room with that restless glance acquired in his nightly watchings in the forest, and answered timidly,—

"That I will, Madame d'Argenton."

This name of D'Argenton, thus given to his mother, mystified our little friend. But as he had no very accurate idea of either the duties or dignities of life, he soon ceased to take any notice of his mother's new title, and became absorbed in a rough game of play with the two dogs under the table. The old couple had just gone, when a carriage was heard at the door.

"Is it you, doctor?" cried Ida from within, in joyous greeting,

"Yes, madame; I come to learn something about your sick son, of whose arrival I have heard."

Jack looked inquisitively at the large, kindly face crowned by snowy locks. The doctor wore a coat down to his heels, and had a rolling walk, the result of twenty years of sea-life as a surgeon.

"Your boy is all right, madame. I was afraid, from what I heard through my servant, that he and you might require my services."

What good people these all were, and bow thankful little Jack felt that he had forever left that detestable school!

When the doctor left, the house was bolted and barred, and the mother and child went tranquilly to their bedroom.

There, while Jack slept, Ida wrote to D'Argenton a long letter, telling him of her son's arrival, and seeking to arouse his sympathy for the little lonely fellow, whose gentle, regular breathing she heard at her side. She was more at her ease when two days later came a reply from her poet.

Although full of reproaches and of allusions to her maternal weakness, and to the undisciplined nature of her child, the letter was less terrible than she had anticipated. In fact, D'Argenton concluded that it was well to be relieved of the enormous expenses at the academy, and while disapproving of the escapade, he thought it no great misfortune, as the Institution was rapidly running down. "Had he not left it?" As to the child's fixture, it should be his care, and when he returned a week later, they would consult together as to what plan to adopt.

Never did Jack, in his whole life, as child or man, pass such a week of utter happiness. His mother belonged to him alone. He had the dogs and the goat, the forest and the rabbits, and yet he did not leave his mother for many minutes at a time. He followed her wherever she went, laughed when she laughed without asking why, and was altogether content.

Another letter. "He will come to-morrow!"

Although D'Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and wished to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly mortifying.

"You will remain at the end of the garden," she said, "and do not come until I call you."

The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the grinding of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself behind the gooseberry bushes. He heard D'Argenton speak. His tone was harder, sterner than ever. He heard his mother's sweet voice answer gently, "Yes, my dear—no, my dear." Then a window in the tower opened. "Come, Jack, I want you, my child!"

The boy's heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D'Argenton was leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate to a certain extent. "Jack," he said, in conclusion, "life is not a romance; you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your penitence; and if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we three may live together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a very busy man.—I am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every day to your education. If you will study faithfully, I can make of you, frivolous as you are by nature, a man like myself."

"You hear, Jack," said his mother, alarmed at his silence, "and you understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you—"

"Yes, mamma," stammered Jack.

"Wait, Charlotte," interrupted D'Argenton; "he must decide for himself: I wish to force no one."

Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to find words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying nothing. Seeing the child's embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him into the poet's arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow.

"Ah, dear, how good you are!" murmured the poor woman, while the child, dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs.

In reality Jack's installation in the house was a relief to the poet. He loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also because he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the name of Ida de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her a complete slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and D'Argenton had grown tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he would have some one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to bully; and it was in this spirit that he undertook Jack's education, for which he made all arrangements with that methodical solemnity characteristic of the man's smallest actions.

The next morning, Jack saw, when he awoke, a large card fastened to the wall, and on it, inscribed in the beautiful writing of the poet, a carefully prepared arrangement for the routine of the day.

"Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to eight, recitation; from eight to nine," and so on.

Days ordered in this systematic manner resemble those windows whose shutters hardly permit the entrance of air enough to breathe, or light to see with. Generally these rules are made only to be broken, but D'Argenton allowed no such laxity.

D'Argenton's method of education was too severe for Jack, who was, however, by no means wanting in intelligence, and was well advanced in his studies. He was disturbed, too, by the personality of the poet, to whom he had a very strong aversion, and above all he was overwhelmed by the new life he was leading.

Suddenly transported from the mouldy lane, and from the academy, to the country, to the woods and the fields, he was at once excited and charmed by Nature. The truest way would have been to have laid aside all books until the child himself demanded them. Often of a sunny day, when he sat in the tower opposite his teacher, he was seized with a strong desire to leap out of the window, and rush into the fresh woods after the birds that had just flown away, or in search of the squirrel of which he had caught a glimpse. What a penance it was to write his copy, while the wild roses beckoned him to come and pluck them!

"This child is an idiot," cried D'Argenton, when to all his questions Jack stammered some answer as far from what he should have said as if he had that moment fallen from the light cloud he had been steadily watching. At the end of a month the poet announced that he relinquished the task, that it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no use to the boy, who neither could nor would learn anything. In reality, he was by no means unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had established, and which pressed with severity on himself as well as on the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She preferred to think her boy incapable of study rather than endure the daily scenes, and the incessant lectures and tears of this educational experiment.

Above everything she longed for peace. Her aims were as restricted as her intellect, and she lived solely in the present, and any future, however brilliant, seemed to her too dearly purchased at the price of present tranquillity.

Jack was very happy when he no longer saw under his eyes that placard: "Rise at six. From six to seven, breakfast; from seven to weight," &c. The days seemed to him longer and brighter. As if he understood that his presence in the house was often an annoyance, he absented himself for the whole day with that absolute disregard of time natural to children and loungers.

He had a great friend in the forester. As soon as he was dressed in the morning he started for Father Archambauld's, just as the old man's wife, before going to her Parisians, as she called her employers, served her husband's breakfast in a fresh, clean room hung with a light green paper that represented the same hunting-scene over and over again.

When the forester had finished his meal, he and little Jack started out on a long tramp. Father Archambauld showed the child the pheasants' nests, with their eggs like large pearls, built in the roots of the trees; the haunts of the partridges, the frightened hares, and the young kids. The hawthorn's white blossoms perfumed the air, and a variety of wild flowers enamelled the turf. The forester's duty was to protect the birds and their young broods from all injury, and to destroy the moles and snakes. He received a certain sum for the heads or tails of these vermin, and every six months carried to Corbiel a bag of dry and dusty relics. He would have been better pleased could he have taken also the heads of the poachers, with whom he was in constant conflict. He had also a great deal of trouble with the peasants who injured his trees.

A doe could be replaced, a dead pheasant was no great matter; but a tree, the growth of years, was a vastly different affair. He watched them so carefully that he knew all their maladies. One species of fir was attacked by tiny worms, which come in some mysterious way by thousands. They select the strongest and handsomest specimens, and take possession of them. The trees have only their resinous sap as a weapon of defence. This sap they pour over their enemies, and over their eggs deposited in the crevices of the bark. Jack watched this unequal contest with the greatest interest, and saw the slow dropping of these odorous tears. Sometimes the fir-tree won the victory, but too often it perished and withered slowly, until at last the giant of the forest; whose lofty top had been the haunt of singing-birds, where bees had made their home, and which had sheltered a thousand different lives, stood white and ghastly as if struck by lightning.

During these walks through the woods, the forester and his companion talked very little. They listened rather to the sweet and innumerable sounds about them. The sound of the wind varied with every tree that it touched. Among the pines it moaned and sighed like the sea. Among the birches and aspens, it rattled the leaves like castanets; while from the borders of the ponds, which were numerous in this part of the forest, came gentle rustlings from the long, slender, silken-coated reeds. Jack learned to distinguish all these sounds and to love them.

The little boy, however, had incurred the enmity of many of the peasants, who saw him constantly with the forester, to whom they had sworn eternal hatred. Cowardly and sulky, they touched their hats respectfully enough to Jack when they met him with Father Archambauld, but when he was alone, they shook their fists at him with horrible oaths.

There was one old woman, brown as an Indian squaw, who haunted the very dreams of the child. On his way home at sunset, he always met her with her fagots on her back. She stood in the path and assailed him with her tongue; and sometimes, merely to frighten him, ran after him for a few steps. Poor little Jack often reached his mother's side breathless and terrified, but, after all, this only added another interest to his life. Sometimes Jack found his mother in the kitchen talking in a low voice; no sound was to be heard in the house save the ticking of the great clock in the dining-room. "Hush, my dear," said his mother; "He is up-stairs. He is at work!"

Jack sat down in a corner and watched the cat lying in the sun. With the awkwardness of a child who makes a noise merely because he knows he ought not to do so, he knocked over something, or moved the table.

"Hush, dear," exclaimed Charlotte, in distress, while Mother Archambauld, laying the table, moved on the points of her big feet—moved as lightly as possible, so as not to disturb "her master who was at work."

He was heard up-stairs—pushing back his chair, or moving his table. He had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,—leisure, sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and country air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn his chair, and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky and water. All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river, came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.

"Now to work!" cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around him every essential for poetry,—a charming woman named in memory of Goethe's heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white goat to follow him from place to place, and an antique clock to mark the hours and to connect the prosaic Present with the romance of the Past! All these were very imposing, but the brain was as sterile as when D'Argenton had given lessons all day and retired to his garret at night, worn out in body and mind.

When Charlotte's step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression of profound absorption. "Come in," he said, in reply to her knock, timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to the elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face seemed to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an opera bouffe.

"I have come to see my poet," she said, as she came in. She had a way of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. "How are you getting on?" she continued. "Are you pleased?"

"Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!"

"That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know—"

"To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his Faust? And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was not condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude—mental solitude, I mean."

The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened to similar complaints from D'Ar-genton, she had at last learned to understand the reproaches conveyed in his words.

The poet's tone signified, "It is not you who can fill the blank around me." In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone with her.

Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him in this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the luxury by which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to himself—transformed and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm in his eyes, and yet she was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to witness the air of business with which he opened each morning the three or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke the seals as if he expected to find in their columns something of absorbing personal interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a resume of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these journals without missing one word, and always found something to arouse his contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces were played; and what pieces they were! Their books were printed; and such books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he could write them down.

"You know, Charlotte, yesterday a new play by Emile Angier was produced; it was simply my Pommes D'Atlante."

"But that is outrageous! I will write myself to this Monsieur Angier," said poor Lottie, in a great state of indignation.

During these remarks, Jack said not one word; but as D'Argenton lashed himself into frenzy, his old antipathy to the child revived, and the heavy frowns with which he glanced toward the little fellow showed him very clearly that his hatred was only smothered, and would burst forth on the smallest provocation.



CHAPTER X.~~THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BELISAIRE.

One afternoon, when D'Argenton and Charlotte had gone to drive, Jack, who was alone with Mother Archambauld, saw that he must relinquish his usual excursion to the forest on account of a storm that was coming up.

The July sky was heavy with black clouds, copper-colored on the edges; distant rumblings of thunder were heard, and the valley had that air of expectation which often precedes a storm.

Fatigued by the child's restlessness, the forester's wife looked out at the weather, and said to Jack,—

"Come, Master Jack, it does not rain; and it would be very kind of you to go and get me a little grass for my rabbits."

The child, enchanted at being of use, took a basket and went gayly off to search in a ditch for the food the rabbits liked.

The white road stretched before him, the rising wind blew the dust in clouds, when suddenly Jack heard a voice crying, "Hats! Hats to sell! Nice Panamas!"

Jack looked over the edge of the ditch, and saw a pedler carrying on his shoulders an enormous basket piled with straw hats. He walked as if he were footsore and weary.

Have you ever thought how dismal the life of an itinerant salesman must be? He knows not where he will sleep at night, or even that he can obtain the shelter of a barn; for the average peasant always regards a pedler, or any stranger, indeed, as an adventurer, and watches him with distrustful eyes.

"Hats! Hats to sell!" For whose ears did he intend this repetition of his monotonous cry? There was not a person in sight, nor a house. Was it for the benefit of the birds, who, feeling the coming of the storm, had taken shelter in the trees? The man took a seat on a pile of stones, while Jack, on the other side of the road, examined him with much curiosity. His face was forbidding to a certain extent, but expressed so much suffering in the heavy features, that Jack's kind heart was filled with pity. At that moment a thunder-clap was heard; the man looked up at the skies anxiously, and then called to Jack to ask how far off the village was.

"Half a mile exactly," answered the child.

"And the shower will be here in a few moments," said the pedler, despairingly. "All my hats will be wet, and I shall be ruined."

The child thought of his own memorable journey, and he wished to do a kind act.

"You can come to our house," he said, "and then your hats will not be injured." The pedler grasped eagerly at this permission, for his merchandise was so delicate. The two hurried on as fast as possible; the man walking, however, as if he were treading on hot iron.

"Are you in pain?" asked the child.

"Yes, indeed, I am; my shoes are too small for me; you see my feet are so big that I can never find anything large enough for them. O, if I should ever be rich, I would have a pair of shoes made to measure!"

They reached Aulnettes. The pedler deposited in the hall his scaffold of hats, and stood there humbly enough. But Jack led him into the dining-room, saying, "You must have a glass of wine and a bit of bread."

Mother Archambauld frowned, but nevertheless put on the table a big loaf and a pot of wine.

"Now a slice of ham," said Jack, in a tone of command.

"But the master does not wish any one to touch the ham," said the old woman, grumbling. In fact, D'Argenton was something of a glutton, and there were always some dainties in the pantry preserved for his especial enjoyment.

"Never mind! bring it out!" said the child, delighted at playing the part of host.

The good woman obeyed reluctantly. The ped-ler's appetite was of the most formidable description, and while he supped he told his simple story. His name was Belisaire, and he was the eldest of a large family, and spent the summer wandering from town to town.—A violent thunder-clap shook the house, the rain fell in torrents, and the noise was terrific. At that moment some one knocked. Jack turned pale. "They have come!" he said with a gasp.

It was D'Argenton who entered, accompanied by Charlotte. They were not to have returned until late, but seeing the approach of the storm, they had given up their plan. They were, however, wet to the skin, and the poet was in a fearful rage with himself and every one else. "A fire in the parlor," he said, in a tone of command.

But while they were taking off their wraps in the hall; D'Argenton perceived the formidable pile of hats.

"What is that?" he asked. Ah! if Jack could but have sunk a hundred feet under ground with his stranger guest and the littered table! The poet entered the room, looked about, and understood everything. The child stammered a word or two of apology, but the other did not listen.

"Come here, Charlotte. Master Jack receives his friends to-day, it seems."

"O, Jack! Jack!" cried the mother in a horrified tone of reproach.

"Do not scold him, madame," stammered Belisaire. "I only am in fault!"

Here D'Argenton, out of all patience, threw open the door with a most imposing gesture. "Go at once," he said, violently; "how dare you come into this house?"

Belisaire, to whom no manner of humiliation was new, offered no word of remonstrance, but snatched up his basket, cast one look of distress at the tempest out-of-doors, and another of gratitude toward little Jack—who sighed as he heard the rain falling like hail on the Panamas,—and hurried down the garden walk. No sooner had the man reached the highway, than his melancholy voice resumed the cry, "Hats! Hats to sell!"

In the dining-room profound silence reigned; the servant was kindling a fire, and Charlotte was shaking the poet's coat, while he sulkily strode up and down the room.

As he passed the table he caught sight of the ham on which the pedler's knife had made sad havoc. D'Argenton turned pale. Remember that the ham was sacred, like his wine, his mustard, and mineral water. "What! the ham, too!" he exclaimed.

Charlotte, utterly stupefied by such audacity, could only mechanically repeat his words.

"I said, madame, that they ought not to cut the ham, that such pork was too good for such a vagabond. But the little fellow does not know much yet, he is so young."

Jack by this time was quite alarmed at what he had done, and could only beg pardon in a troubled tone.

"Pardon, indeed!" cried the poet, giving way, as it must be admitted he rarely did, to his temper, and shaking the boy violently, exclaimed, "What right had you to touch that ham? You knew it was not yours. You know that nothing here is yours; for the bed you sleep on, for the food you eat, you are indebted to my bounty. And why should I care for you? I know not even your name!" Here an imploring gesture from Charlotte stopped the torrent of words. Mother Archambauld was still in the room, and listening with eagerness. The poet turned away suddenly, and rushed up stairs, banging the door after him.

Jack remained, looking at his mother in consternation. She wrung her pretty hands, and again implored heaven to tell her what she had done to merit such a hard fate.

This was her only resource in the serious perplexities of life; and, naturally, her question remained unanswered.

To add the finishing touch to the discomfort of the house, D'Argenton was now taken with one of "his attacks," a form of bilious fever.

Charlotte petted and soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly nature, made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How tenderly she protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on the table under the white one to soften the noise of the plates and the silver. She piled the Henry II. chair with cushions, and had her rolls of hot flannels and her tisanes in readiness at all hours of the day and night.

Sometimes the poor little woman was fearfully rebuffed and mortified by a fretful exclamation from the poet. "Do be quiet, Charlotte; you talk too much!"

This illness brought the good-natured doctor to the house once more. Charlotte met him in the hall. "Come quick, doctor, our dear poet is suffering," she said, anxiously.

"Nonsense, my dear; he only wants a little amusement."

In fact, D'Argenton, who greeted the physician in the most languid tones, soon forgot to keep up the farce in the pleasure of seeing a new face, which made a pleasant break in his monotonous life, and a few moments later beheld him launched on some dazzling episode of his Parisian life. The doctor saw no reason to doubt the truth of these narrations told in such measured and careful phrases, and was always pleased with the appearance of the family,—the intellectual husband, the pretty gay wife, and the amusing child; and no intuition gave him a hint, as might have been the case with a more delicate organization, of the peculiarity and bitterness of the ties which bound the household together.

Often, therefore, on these bright midsummer days, the doctor's horse was fastened to the palisades, while the old man drank the cool glass carefully mixed for him by Charlotte herself, and as he drank, he told of his wonderful adventures in India. Jack listened with eyes and ears wide open.

"Jack!" said D'Argenton, peremptorily, and pointed to the door.

"Let him stay, I beg of you; I like to have children around me. I am quite sure that your boy has discovered that I have a grandchild;" and the old man talked of his little Cecile, who was two years younger than Jack.

"Bring her to see us, doctor," said Charlotte; "the two children would be so happy together."

"Thank you, dear madame; but her grandmother would never consent. She never trusts the child to any one; and she herself never goes anywhere since our great sorrow."

This sorrow, of which the old doctor often spoke, was the loss of his daughter and his son-in-law within a year after their marriage. Some mystery surrounded this double catastrophe. Even Mother Archambauld, who knew everything, contented herself with saying, "Yes, poor things! they have had a great deal of trouble."

The only prescription given by the doctor was a verbal one, "Keep him amused, madame; keep him amused!"

How could poor Charlotte do this? They went off together in a little carriage; breakfast, books, and a butterfly-net accompanied them to the forest; but he was bored to death. They bought a boat, but a tete-a-tete in the middle of the Seine was worse than one on shore; and the little boat soon lay moored at the landing, half full of water and dead leaves.

Then the poet took to building; he planned a new staircase and an Italian terrace: but even this did not amuse him.

One day a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of an AEolian harp. D'Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack's life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child's great relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard. D'Argenton fiercely commanded that the instrument should be buried, which was done, and the earth heaped upon it as over some mad animal. All these various occupations failing to amuse her poet, Charlotte reluctantly decided to invite some of his old friends, but was repaid for her sacrifice by witnessing D'Argenton's joy on being told that Dr. Hirsch and Labassandre were soon to visit them.

When Jack entered the house, a few days later, he heard the voices of his old professors. The child felt an emotion of sick terror, for the sounds recalled the memory of so many wretched hours. He slipped quietly into the garden, there to await the dinner-bell.

"Come, gentlemen," said Charlotte, smilingly, as she appeared on the terrace,—her large white apron indicating that au a good housekeeper she by no means disdained on occasion to lay aside her lace ruffles and take an active part.

The professors promptly obeyed this summons to dinner, and greeted Jack as he took his seat with every appearance of cordiality. Two large doors opened on the lawn, beyond which lay the forest.

"You are a lucky fellow," said Labassandre. "Tomorrow I shall be in that hot, dusty town, eating a miserable dinner."

"It is a good thing to be certain of having even a miserable dinner," grumbled Dr. Hirsch.

"Why not remain here for a time?" said D'Argen-ton, cordially. "There is a room for each of you; the cellar has some good wine in it—"

"And we can make excursions," interrupted Charlotte, gayly.

"But what would become of my rehearsals?" said Labassandre.

"But you, Dr. Hirsch," continued Charlotte, "you are tied down to the opera-house!"

"Certainly not; and my patients are nearly all in the country at this season."

The idea of Dr. Hirsch having any patients was very funny, and yet no one laughed.

"Well, decide!" cried the poet, "In the first place, you would be doing me a favor, and could prescribe for me."

"To be sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution, while I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute and of Moron-val, and never wish to see either more." Thereupon the doctor launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported him. Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every one was giving him up; the affair of Madou had done him great injury; and finally Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack on his energetic departure.

At this moment Dr. Rivals was shown into the dining-room; he was overjoyed at finding so gay and talkative a circle. "You see, madame, I was right: our invalid only needed a little excitement."

"There I differ from you!" cried Dr. Hirsch, fiercely, snuffing the battle from afar.

Old Rivals examined this singular person with some distrust. "Dr. Hirsch," said D'Argenton, "allow me to present you to Dr. Rivals." They bowed like two duellists on the field who salute each other before crossing their swords. The country physician concluded his new acquaintance to be some famous Parisian practitioner, full of eccentricities and hobbies. D'Argenton's illness was the occasion of a long discussion between the physicians.

It was droll to see the poet's expression. He was inclined to take offence that Dr. Rivals should consider him a mere hypochondriac, and again to be equally annoyed when Dr. Hirsch insisted upon his having a hundred diseases, each one with a worse name than the others.

Charlotte listened with tears in her eyes.

"But this is utter nonsense," cried Rivals, who had listened impatiently; "there are no such diseases, in the first place, and if there were, our friend has no such symptoms."

This was too much for Dr. Hirsch, and the battle began in earnest. They hurled at each other titles of books in every language, names of every drug known and unknown to the faculty. The scene was more laughable than terrific, and was very much like one from "Moliere." Jack and his mother escaped to the piazza, Where Labassandre was already trying his voice. The winged inhabitants of the forest twittered in terror; the peacocks in the neighboring chateau answered by those alarmed cries with which they greet the approach of a thunder-shower; the neighboring peasants started from their sleep, and old Mother Archambauld wondered what was going on in the little house, where the moon shone so whitely on the legend in gold characters over the door:

PARVA DOMUS, MAGNA QUIES.



CHAPTER XI.~~CECILE.

"Where are you going so early?" asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of Lord Pembroke.

"To church, my dear sir. Has not D'Argenton told you that I have an especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you not?"

It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in the Te Deum of this official fete.

Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse D'Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige of a married woman. This new role amused and interested her. She corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.

When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother's ear a question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him; Charlotte hesitated, for "she knew so few persons in the church. Then the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals' grandchild—a little girl on the opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children walked slowly behind the majestic official, Cecile carrying a velvet bag much too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous wax candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers. They were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers mingled with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. Cecile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life for him would come from her?

"They would make a pretty pair," said an old woman, as the children passed her, and in a lower voice added, "Poor little soul, I hope she will be more fortunate than her mother!"

Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame D'Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast. Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the boy's necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, "Be a good child!"

From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old doctor's, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of that nature had been interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and the old people had never had the heart to go on with their improvements since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say, with a discouraged air, "What is the use?" The garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass grew over the walks, and weeds choked the fountain. The human beings in the house had much the same air. From Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her daughter's death, still wore the deepest of black, down to little Cecile, whose childish face had a precocious expression of sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter of a century had shared the griefs and sorrows of the family,—all seemed to live in an atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was ever cheerful.

To Madame Rivals, Cecile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her mother's place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on meeting his wife's sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.

Little Cecile's life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden, or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the apartment that had once been her mother's, and which was full of the souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this room, but little Cecile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent. The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very bad for her; she needed the association of other children. "Let us ask little D'Argenton here," said her grandfather: "the boy is charming!"

"Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?" answered his wife. "Who knows them?"

"Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he is an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The woman is not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will answer for their respectability."

Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her husband's insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.

Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original idea.

"The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm could possibly happen?"

The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cecile became close companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw that he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and that he had no lesson-hours.

"Do you not go to school, my dear?"

"No, madame," was the answer; and then quickly added,—for a child's instinct is very delicate,—"Mamma teaches me."

"I cannot understand," said Madame Rivals to her husband, "how they can let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till night."

"The child is not very clever," answered the doctor, anxious to excuse his friends.

"No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him."

Jack's best friends were in the doctor's house. Cecile adored him. They played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy if it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no apothecary's store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself. She had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable experience, and was often consulted in her husband's absence. The children found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles, and pasting on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy's awkwardness, while little Cecile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman grown.

The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he went about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large, the children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably, and merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were warmly welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the children roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.

Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life. The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard day's toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn, while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for morning. Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have been very rich, had he not been so generous.

His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees, with their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low white houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern scene. "It is like Nazareth," said little Cecile; and the two children told each other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.

Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an hour's instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of enjoying a siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by the old man, when I add that it was this precise time that he now freely gave to the little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied himself with his whole heart to his lessons. Cecile was almost always present, and was as pleased as Jack himself when her grandfather, examining the copy-book, said, "Well done!" To his mother, Jack said nothing of his labors; he determined to prove to her at some future day that the diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This concealment was rendered very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent to her child, and more completely absorbed in D'Argenton. The boy's comings and goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was often vacant, but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the board, for D'Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means generous in his hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him, timidly, "I am out of money, my friend," he would reply by a wry face and the word, "Already?" But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the pleasure of patronizing his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he had formerly lived, carried the day. They all knew that he had a pleasant home, that the air was good and the table better; consequently, one would say to another, "Who wants to go to Etiolles to-night?" They came in droves.

Poor Charlotte was in despair. "Madame Archambauld, are there eggs?—is there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give them?"

"Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved," said the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of her master's friends.

D'Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as happy and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh country, in the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed more rusty and more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy, and D'Argenton radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal "I think," and "I know." Was he not the master of the house, and had he not the key of the wine cellar?

Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She was flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was pleased to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.

Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy mists of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the fierce winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and violets, gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing was changed there. D'Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms, dignified by Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as totally without salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as she had always been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having studied industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.

"Send him to school now," said Doctor Rivals to his mother, "and I answer for his making a figure."

"Ah, doctor, how good you are!" cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.

D'Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that he had grave objections to a school, &c., and when alone with Charlotte, expressed his indignation at the doctor's interference, but from that time took more interest in the movements of the boy.

"Come here, sir," said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed somewhat anxiously. "Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot of the garden?"

"It was I, sir."

Cecile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.

"Did you make it yourself, without any aid?"

"Yes, sir," answered the child.

"It is wonderful, very wonderful," continued the singer, turning to the others. "The child has a positive genius for mechanics."

In the evening there was a grand discussion. "Yes, madame/," said Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; "the man of the future, the coming man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs, and now it is the workman's turn. You may to-day despise his horny hands, in twenty years he will lead the world."

"He is right," interrupted D'Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion felt a keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.

Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village forge. "You know, my friends," he said, "whether I have been successful. You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals. You may believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part with all sooner than with this;" and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve and displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two blacksmith's hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an inscription was above these emblems in small letters: Work and Liberty. Labassandre proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the manager of the opera at Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let alone, he would by this time have been the proprietor of a large machine shop, with a provision laid up for his old age.

"Yes," said Charlotte, "but you were very strong, and I have heard you say that the life was a hard one."

"Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in question is sufficiently robust."

"I will answer for that," said Dr. Hirsch.

Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more refined than others—"that certain aristocratic instincts—"

Here D'Argenton interrupted her in a rage. "What nonsense! My friends occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter absurdities."

Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire to fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his pretty mother.

Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in his mother's manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him with that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom we are about to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D'Argenton say to Dr. Rivals, with a satirical smile, "We are all busy, sir, in your pupil's interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will astonish you."

The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, "You see, my dear, that I did well to make them open their eyes."

"Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with folded arms than trouble himself about you."



CHAPTER XII.~~LIFE IS NOT A ROMANCE.

One Sunday morning, just after the arrival of the train that had brought Labassandre and a noisy band of friends, Jack, who was in the garden busy with his squirrel-net, heard his mother call him. Her voice came from the window of the poet's room. Something in its tone, or a certain instinct so marked in some persons, told the child that the crisis had come, and he tremblingly ascended the stairs. On the Henri Deux chair D'Argenton sat, throned as it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch stood on either side. Jack saw at once that there were the tribunal, the judge, and the witnesses, while his mother sat a little apart at an open window.

"Come here!" said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself had spoken. "I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn has now come to enter the arena. You are a man,"—the child was but twelve,—"you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For a year,—the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,—I have permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of observation, I have been able to decide on your path in life. I have watched the development of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and, with your mother's consent, have taken a step of importance." Jack was frightened, and turned to his mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat gazing from the window, shading her eyes from the sun. D'Argenton called on Labassandre to produce the letter he had received. The singer pulled out a large, ill-folded peasant's letter, and read it aloud:—

"FOUNDRY D'INDRET.

"My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to the young man, your friend's son, and he is willing, in spite of his youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may live under our roof, and in four years I promise you that he shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and Zenaide send messages.

"Rondic."

"You hear, Jack," interrupted D'Argenton; "in four years you will hold a position second to none in the world,—you will be a good workman."

The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen a noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o'clock in the Passage des Douze Maisons. The idea of wearing a blouse was the first that struck him. He remembered his mother's tone of contempt,—"Those are workmen, those men in blouses!"—he remembered the care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed. But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest, the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from the window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much and had found again after so much difficulty.

Charlotte, at the open window, shivered from head to foot, and her hand dashed away a tear. Was she watching in that western sky the fading away of all her dreams, her illusions, and her hopes?

"Then must I go away?" asked the child, faintly.

The men smiled pityingly, and from the window came a great sob.

"In a week we will go, my boy," said Labassandre, cheeringly. But D'Argenton, with a frown directed to the window, said, "You can leave the room now, and be ready for your journey in a week."

Jack ran down the stairs, and out into the village street, and did not stop to take breath until he reached the house of Dr. Rivals, who listened to his story with indignation.

"It is preposterous!" he cried. "The very idea of making a mechanic of you is absurd. I will see your father at once."

The persons who saw the two pass through the street—the doctor gesticulating, and little Jack without a hat—concluded that some one must be ill at Aulnettes. This was not the case, however; for Dr. Rivals heard loud talking and laughing as he entered the house, and Charlotte, as she descended the stairs, was singing a bar from the last opera.

"I wish to say a few words in private to you, sir," said Mr. Rivals.

"We are among friends," answered D'Argenton, "and have no secrets. You have something to say, I suppose, in regard to Jack. These gentlemen know all that I have done for him, my motives, and the peculiar circumstances of the case."

"But, my friend "—Charlotte said, timidly, fearing the explanation that was forthcoming.

"Go on, doctor," interrupted the poet, sternly.

"Jack has just told me that you have apprenticed him to the Forge at Indret. This, of course, is a mistake on his part."

"Not in the least, sir."

"But you can have no conception of the child's nature, nor of his constitution. It is his health, his very existence, with which you are trifling. I assure you, madame," he continued, turning toward Charlotte, "that your child could not endure such a life. I am speaking now simply of his physique. Mentally and spiritually, he is equally unfitted for it."

"You are mistaken, doctor," interrupted D'Argen-ton; "I know the boy better than you possibly can. He is only fit for manual labor, and now that I offer him the opportunity of earning his daily bread in this way, of exercising the one talent he may have, he goes to you and makes complaints of me."

Jack tried to excuse himself. His friend bade him be silent, and continued,—

"He did not complain to me. He simply informed me of your decision. I told him to come at once to his mother, and to you, and entreat you to reconsider your determination, and not degrade him in this way."

"I deny the degradation," shouted Labassandre. "Manual labor does not degrade a man. The Saviour of the world was a carpenter."

"That is true," murmured Charlotte, before whose eyes at once floated a vision of her boy as the infant Jesus in a procession on some feast-day.

"Do not listen to such utter nonsense, dear ma-dame," cried the doctor, exasperated out of all patience. "To make your boy a mechanic is to separate from him forever. You might send him to the other end of the world, and yet he would not be so far from you. You will see when it is too late; the day will come that you will blush for him, when he will appear before you, not as the loving, tender son, but humble and servile, as holding a social position far inferior to your own."

Jack, who had not yet said a word, dismayed at this vivid picture of the future, started up from his seat in the corner.

"I will not be a mechanic!" he said, in a firm voice.

"O, Jack!" cried his mother, in consternation.

But D'Argenton thundered out, "You will not be a mechanic, you say? But you will eat, and sleep, and be clothed at my expense! No, sir; I have had enough of you, and I never cared much for parasites." Then, suddenly cooling down, he concluded in a lower tone by a command to the boy to retire to his bedroom. There the child heard a loud and angry discussion going on below, but the words were not to be understood. Suddenly the hall-door opened, and Mr. Rivals was heard to say,—

"May I be hanged if I ever cross this threshold again!"

At this moment Charlotte came in, her eyes red with weeping. For the first time she seemed to have lost all consciousness of self, and had laid aside her role of the coquettish, pretty woman. The tears she had shed had been those that age a mother's face, and leave ineffaceable marks upon it.

"Listen to me, Jack," she said, tenderly. "You have made me very unhappy. You have been impertinent and ungrateful to your best friends. I know, my child, that you will be happy in your new life. I acknowledge that at first I was troubled at the idea; but you heard what they said, did you not? A mechanic is very different nowadays from what it was once. And, besides, at your age you should rely on the judgment of those older than yourself, who have only your interests at heart."

A sob from the child interrupted her.

"Then you, too, send me away!"

The mother snatched him to her heart, and kissed him passionately. "I send you away, my darling! You know that if the matter rested with me, you should never leave me; but, my child, we must both of us be reasonable, and think a little of the future, which is dreary enough for us." And then Charlotte hesitatingly continued, "You know, dear, you are very young, and there are many things you cannot understand. Some day, when you are older, I will tell you the secret of your birth. It is an absolute romance: some day you shall learn your father's name. But now all that is necessary for you to understand is, that we have not a penny in the world, and are absolutely dependent on—D'Argenton." This name the poor woman uttered with shame and hesitation, accompanied, at the same time, with a touching look of appeal to her son. "I cannot," she continued, "ask him to do anything more for us; he has already done so much. Besides, he is not rich. What am I to do between you both? Ah, if I could only go in your place to Indret and earn my bread! And yet you would refuse an opening that gives you a certainty of earning your livelihood, and of becoming your own master."

By the sparkle in her boy's eyes the mother saw that these words had struck home, and in a caressing tone she continued, "Do this for me, Jack; do this for your mother. The time may come when I shall have to look to you as my sole support." Did she really believe her own words? Was it a presentiment, one of those momentary flashes of light that illuminate the future's dark horizon? or had she simply talked for effect?

At all events, she could have found no better way to conquer this generous nature. The effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother some day would lean on him suddenly decided him to yield at once. He looked her straight in the eyes. "Promise me that you will never be ashamed of me when my hands are black, and that you will always love me."

She covered her boy with kisses, concealing in this way her trouble and remorse, for from this time henceforward the unhappy woman was a prey to remorse, and never thought of her child without an agonized contraction of the heart.

But he, supposing that her embarrassment came from anxiety, and possibly from shame, tore himself away, and ran toward the stairs.

"Come, mama, I will tell him that I accept."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the little fellow to D'Argenton, as he opened the door; "I was very wrong in refusing your kindness. I accept it with thanks."

"I am happy to find that reflection has taught you wisdom. But now express your gratitude to M. Labassandre: it is he to whom you are indebted."

The child extended his hand, which was quickly ingulfed in the enormous paw of the artist.

This last week Jack spent in his former haunts he was more anxious than sad, and the responsibility he felt made itself seen in two little wrinkles on his childish brow. He was determined not to go away without seeing Cecile.

"But, my dear, after the scene here the other day, it would not be suitable," remonstrated his mother. But the night before Jack's departure, D'Argenton, full of triumph at the success of his plans, consented that the boy should take leave of his friends. He went there in the evening. The house was dark, save a streak of light coming from the library—if library it could be called—a mere closet, crammed with books. The doctor was there, and exclaimed, as the door opened, "I was afraid they would not let you come to say good-bye, my boy! It was partially my fault. I was too quick-tempered by far. My wife scolded me well. She has gone away, you know, with Cecile, to pass a month in the Pyrenees with my sister. The child was not well; I think I told her of your impending departure too abruptly. Ah, these children! we think they do not feel, but we are mistaken, and they feel quite as deeply as we ourselves." He spoke to Jack as one man to another. In fact, every one treated him in the same way at present. And yet the little fellow now burst into a violent passion of tears at the thought of his little friend having gone away without his seeing her.

"Do you know what I am doing now, my lad?" asked the old man. "Well, I am selecting some books that you must read carefully. Employ in this way every leisure moment. Remember that books are our best friends. I do not think you will understand this just yet, but one day you will do so, I am sure. In the mean time, promise me to read them,"—the old man kissed the boy twice,—"for Cecile and myself," he said, kindly; and, as the door closed, the child heard him say, "Poor child, poor child!"

The words were the same as at the Jesuits' College; but by this time Jack had learned why they pitied him. The next morning they started, Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for an expedition across the Pampas,—high gaiters, a green velvet vest, a knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty; happy, because this departure filled him with joy.

Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. "You will take good care of him, M. Labassandre?"

"As of my best note, madame."

Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end of the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled through her tears.

"Write often!" cried the mother.

And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, "Remember, Jack, life is not a romance!"

Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish egotist! He stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on Charlotte's shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself in a pose pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having won the day, that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to the child he had driven from the shelter of his roof.



CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.

The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, "Is not the scene beautiful, Jack?"

It was about four o'clock—a July evening; the waves glittered in the sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream, arriving, perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years' voyage, and bearing with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands. A fresh breeze came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue of the ocean.

"And Indret—where is it?" asked Jack.

"There, that island opposite."

Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly a row of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a thick black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on iron, and a continual whistling and puffing, as if the island itself had been an enormous steamer. As the boat slowly made her way to the wharf, the child saw long, low buildings on every side, and close at the river-side a row of enormous furnaces, which were filled from the water by coal barges.

"There is Rondic!" cried the opera-singer, and from his stupendous chest sent forth a hurrah so formidable that it was heard above all the clatter of machinery.

The boat stopped, and the brothers met with effusion. The two resembled each other very much, though Rondic was older and not so stout. His face was closely shaven, and he wore a sailor's hat that shaded a true Breton peasant face tanned by the sea, and a pair of eyes as keen as steel.

"And how are you all?" asked Labassandre.

"Well enough, well enough, thank Heaven! And this is our new apprentice?—he looks very small and not over-strong."

"Strong as an ox, my dear; and warranted by all the physicians in Paris!"

"So much the better, for it is a hard life here. But now hasten, for we must present ourselves to the Director at once."

They turned into a long avenue lined by fine trees. The avenue terminated in a village street, with white houses on both sides, inhabited by the master and head-workmen. At this hour all was silent; life and movement were concentrated at the factory; and, but for the linen drying in the yards, an occasional cry of an infant, and a pot of flowers at the window, one would have supposed the place uninhabited.

"Ah, the flag is lowered!" said the singer, as they reached the door. "Once that terrified me!" and he explained to Jack that when the flag was dropped from the top of the staff, it meant that the doors of the factory were closed. So much the worse for late comers; they were marked as absent, and at the third offence dismissed. They were now admitted by the porter. There was a frightful tumult pervading the large halls which were crossed by tramways. Iron bars and rolls of copper were piled between old cannons brought there to be recast. Rondic pointed out all the different branches of the establishment; he could not make himself understood save by gestures, for the noise was deafening.

Jack was able to see the interiors of the various workshops, the doors being set widely open on account of the heat; he saw rapid movements of arms and blackened faces; he saw machines in motion, first in shadow, and then with a red light playing over their polished surface.

Puffs of hot air, a smell of oil and of iron, accompanied by an impalpable black dust, a dust that was as sharp as needles and sparkled like diamonds,—all this Jack felt; but the peculiar characteristic of the place was a certain jarring, something like the effort of an enormous beast to shake off the chains that bound him in some subterranean dungeon.

They had now reached an old chateau of the time of the League.

"Here we are," said Rondic; and addressing his brother, "Will you go up with us?"

"Indeed I will; I am, besides, by no means unwilling to see 'the monkey' once more, and to show him that I have become somebody and something."

He pulled down his velvet vest, and glanced at his yellow boots and knapsack. Rondic made no remark, but seemed somewhat annoyed.

They passed through the low postern; on either side of the hall were small and badly lighted rooms, where clerks were very busy writing. In the inner room, a man with a stern and haughty face sat writing under a high window.

"Ah, it is you, Pere Rondic!"

"Yes, sir; I come to present the new apprentice, and to thank you for—"

"This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very strong. Is he delicate?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, I have been assured that he is remarkably robust."

"Remarkably," repeated Labassandre, coming forward, and, in reply to the astonished glance of the Director, proceeded to say that he left the manufactory six years before to join the opera in Paris.

"Ah, yes, I remember," answered the Director, coldly enough, rising at the same time as if to indicate that the conversation was at an end. "Take away your apprentice, Rondic, and try and make a good workman of him. Under you he must turn out well."

The opera-singer, vexed at having produced no effect, went away somewhat crestfallen. Rondic lingered and said a few words to his master, and then the two men and the child descended the stairs together, each with a different impression. Jack thought of the words "he does not look very strong," while Labassandre digested his own mortification as he best might. "Has anything gone wrong?" he suddenly asked his brother,—"the Director seems even more surly now than in my day."

"No; he spoke to me of Chariot, our poor sister's son, who is giving us a great deal of trouble."

"In what way?" asked the artist.

"Since his mother's death he drinks and gambles, and has contracted debts. He is a wonderful draughtsman, and has high wages, but spends them before he has them. He has promised us all to reform, but he breaks his promises as fast as he makes them. I have paid his debts for him several times, but I can never do it again. I have my own family, you see, and Zenaide is growing up, and she must be established. Poor girl! Women have more sense than we. I wanted her to marry her cousin, but she would not consent. Now we are trying to separate him from his bad acquaintances here, and the Director has found a situation at Nantes; but I dare say the obstinate fellow will object. You will reason with him to-night, can't you? He will, perhaps, listen to you."

"I will see what I can do," answered Labassandre, pompously.

As they talked they reached the main street, crowded at this hour with all classes of people, some in mechanics' blouses, others wearing coats. Jack was struck with the contrast presented by a crowd like this to one in Paris, composed of similar classes.

Labassandre was greeted with enthusiasm. The whisper went about that he received a hundred thousand francs per year for merely singing. His theatrical costume won universal admiration, and his bland smile shone first on one side and then on the other, as he nodded patronizingly to first one and then another of his old friends.

At the door of Rondic's house stood a young woman talking to a youth two or three steps below. Jack thought she must be the old man's daughter, and then remembered that he had married a second time. She was tall and slender, young and pretty, with a gentle face, white throat, and a graceful head which bent slightly forward as if bowed by its rich weight of hair. Unlike the Breton peasants, she wore no cap; her light dress and black apron were totally unlike the costume of a working woman.

"Is she not pretty?" asked Rondic of his brother. "She has been giving a lecture to her nephew."

Madame Rondic turned at that moment, and greeted them warmly. "I hope," she said to the child, "that you will be happy with us."

They entered the house, and as they took their seats at the table, Labassandre said with a theatrical start, "And where is Zenaide?"

"We will not wait for her," answered Rondic; "she will be here presently. She is at work now at the chateau, for she has become a famous seamstress."

"Indeed! Then she must have learned also to keep her temper well under control, if she can work at the Director's," said Labassandre, "for he is such an arrogant, haughty person—"

"You are very much mistaken," interrupted Ron-die; "he is, on the contrary, a most excellent man; strict, perhaps, but when a master has to manage two thousand operatives, he must be somewhat of a disciplinarian. Is not that so, Clarisse?" and the old man turned to his wife, who, seemingly occupied with her dinner, paid no attention to him. A certain preoccupation was very evident.

At this moment the youth, with whom Madame Rondic had been talking at the door, came in and shook hands with his uncle Labassandre, who replied coldly to his greeting; thinking, possibly, of the remonstrances he had promised to lavish upon him. Zenaide quickly followed: a plump little girl, red and out of breath; not pretty, and square in face and figure, she looked like her father. She wore a white cap, and her short skirts, and small shawl pinned over her shoulders, increased her general clumsiness. But her heavy eyebrows and square chin indicated an unusual amount of firmness and decision, offering the strongest possible contrast to the gentle, irresolute expression of her stepmother's sweet face. Without a moment's delay, not waiting to detach the enormous shears that hung at her side, or to disembarrass herself of the needles and pins which glittered on her breast like a cuirass, the girl slipped into a seat next to Jack. The presence of the strangers did not abash her in the least. Whatever she had to say she said, simply and decidedly; but when she spoke to her cousin Chariot, it was in a vexed tone.

He did not appear to notice this, but replied with jests which left more than one scar.

"And I wished them to marry each other," said Father Rondic, in a despairing, complaining tone, as he heard them dispute.

"And I made no objection," said the young man with a laugh, as he looked at his cousin.

"But I did, then," answered the girl abruptly, frowning and unabashed. "And I am glad of it. Had I married you, my handsome cousin, I should have drowned myself by this time!"

These words were said with so much unction that for a few moments the handsome cousin was silent and discomfited.

Clarisse was startled, and turned to her daughter-in-law with a timid look of appeal.

"Listen, Chariot," said Rondic, anxious to change the conversation: "to prove to you that the Director is a good man. He has found a splendid place at Guerigny for you. You will have a better salary there than here, and "—here Rondic hesitated, glanced at the irresponsive face of the youth, then at his daughter and at his wife, as if at a loss to finish his phrase.

"And, it is better to go away, uncle, than to be dismissed!" answered Chariot, roughly. "But I do not agree with you. If the Director does not want me, let him say so,—and I will then look out for myself!"

"He is right!" cried Labassandre, thumping loud applause on the table. A hot discussion now arose; but Chariot was firm in his refusal.

Zenaide did not open her lips, but she never took her eyes from her stepmother, who was busy about the table.

"And you, mamma," said she at last, "is it not your opinion that Chariot should go to Guerigny?"

"Certainly, certainly," answered Madame Rondic, quickly, "I think he ought to accept the offer."

Chariot rose quickly from his chair.

"Very well," he said, moodily, "since every one wishes to get rid of me here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it."

The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and to each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked their pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly.

Jack listened to them sadly. "Must I become like these?" he said to himself, with a thrill of horror.

During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw his future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white hands. Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls were cut, to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the air of distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated D'Argenton, was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his former home. Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken.

"O," said Rondic, "it is only the fatigue of his journey and these clothes that give him that look;" and then turning to his wife, the good man said,

"You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o'clock!"

The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories, the first floor divided into two rooms—one called the parlor, which had a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece.

One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zenaide's room the bed was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak filled one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over by rosaries of all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn, completed the simple arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen which concealed the ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice was to sleep.

"This is my room," said Zenaide, "and you, my boy, will be up there just over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you please, I sleep too soundly to be disturbed."

A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft, which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in the roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared Jack for strange sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his miseries: here he had no Madou, here he had nobody. The child looked about him. On the bed lay his costume for the next day; the large pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse looked as if some person had thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.

Jack said half aloud, "It is I lying there!" and while he stood, sadly enough, he heard the confused noise of the men in the garden, and at the same time an earnest discussion in the room below between Zenaide and her stepmother.

The young girl's voice was easily distinguished, heavy like a man's; Madame Rondic's tones, on the contrary, were thin and flute-like, and seemed at times choked by tears.

"And he is going!" she cried, with more passion than her ordinary appearance would have led one to suppose her capable of.

Then Zenaide spoke—remonstrating, reasoning.

Jack felt himself in a new world; he was half afraid of all these people, but the memory of his mother sustained him. He thought of her as he looked at the sky set thick with stars. Suddenly he heard a long, shivering sigh and a sob, and found that Madame Rondic was looking out into the night, and weeping like himself, at a window below.

In the morning, Father Rondic called him; he swallowed a tumbler of wine and ate a crust of bread, and hurried to the machine-shop. And there, could his foolish mother have seen him, how quickly would she have taken her child from his laborious task, for which he was so totally unfitted by nature and education. The regulations for, lack of punctuality were very strict. The first offence was a fine, and the third absolute dismissal. Jack was generally at the door before the first sound of the bell; but one day, two or three months after his arrival on the island, he was delayed by the ill-nature of others. His hat had been blown away by a sudden gust of wind just as he reached the forge. "Stop it!" cried the child, running after it. Just as he reached it, an apprentice coming up the street gave the hat a kick and sent it on; another did the same, and then another. This was very amusing to all save Jack, who, out of breath and angry, felt a strong desire to weep, for he knew that a positive hatred toward him was hidden under all this apparent jesting. In the meantime the bell was sounding its last strokes, and the child was compelled to relinquish the useless pursuit. He was utterly wretched, for it was no small expense to buy a new cap; he must write to his mother for money, and D'Argenton would read the letter. This was bad enough; but the consciousness that he was disliked among his fellow-workmen troubled him still more.

Some persons need tenderness as plants need heat to sustain life. Jack was one of these, and he asked himself sadly why no one loved him in his new abiding-place. Just as he arrived at the open door, he heard quick breathing behind him, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and turning, he saw a smiling, hideous face, while a rough hand extended the missing cap.

Where had he seen that face? "I have it!" he cried at last; but at that moment there was no time to renew his acquaintance with the pedler, to whom, and to whose fragile stock of goods, he had given such timely shelter on that showery summer's day.

The child's spirits rose, he was less sad, less lonely. While his hands were busy with his monotonous toil, his mind was occupied with thoughts of the past: he saw again the lovely country road near his mother's house; he heard the low rumbling of the doctor's gig, and felt the fresh breeze from the river, even there in the stifling atmosphere of the machine-shop.

That evening he searched for Belisaire, but in vain; again the next day, but could learn nothing of him; and by degrees the uncouth face that had revived so many beautiful memories, in the child's sick heart faded and died away, and he was again left alone.

The boy was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals' books, Jack sought a quiet nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks, where he sat quite concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the rush, the magic, and the extent of the water before him. The distant church-bells rang out praises to the Lord, and all was rest and peace. Occasionally a vessel drifted past, and from afar came the laughter of children at play.

He read, but his studies were often too deep for him, and he would lift his eyes from the pages, and listen dreamily to the soft lapping of the water on the pebbles of the shore, while his thoughts wandered to his mother and his little friend.

At last autumnal rains came, and then the child passed his Sundays at the Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zenaide in particular. The old man felt a certain contempt for Jack's physical delicacy, and said the boy stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but "he was a good little fellow all the same!" In reality, old Rondic felt a great respect for Jack's attainments, his own being of the most superficial description. He could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and since he had married the second Madame Rondic, he had become painfully conscious of his deficiencies. His wife was the daughter of a subordinate artillery officer, the belle and beauty of a small town. She was well brought up,—one of a numerous family, where each took her share of toil and economy. She accepted Rondic, notwithstanding the disparity of years and his lack of education, and entertained for her husband the greatest possible affection. He adored his wife, and would make any sacrifice for her happiness or her gratification. He thought her prettier than any of the wives of his friends,—who were all, in fact, stout Breton peasants, more occupied with their household cares than with anything else. Clarisse had a certain air about her, and dressed and arranged her hair in a way that offered the greatest contrast to the monastic aspect of the women of the country, who covered their hair with thick folds of linen, and concealed their figures with the clumsy fullness of their skirts.