scenic effect, and the title is a
capital advertisement.--And did you enjoy it, my little friend?" he
continued, sitting down before the child.

When the notary pursued his inquiries as to the possibilities of a drama
in the bed of a torrent, the little girl turned slowly away and began to
cry. Her mother did not notice this in her intense annoyance.

"Oh! yes, monsieur, I enjoyed it very much," said the child. "There is a
dear little boy in the play, and he was all alone in the world, because
his papa could not have been his real papa. And when he came to the top
of the bridge over the torrent, a big, naughty man with a beard, dressed
all in black, came and threw him into the water. And then Helene began
to sob and cry, and everybody scolded us, and father brought us away
quick, quick----"

M. de Vandenesse and the Marquise looked on in dull amazement, as if all
power to think or move had been suddenly paralyzed.

"Do be quiet, Gustave!" cried the General. "I told you that you were not
to talk about anything that happened at the play, and you have forgotten
what I said already."

"Oh, my lord Marquis, your lordship must excuse him," cried the notary.
"I ought not to have asked questions, but I had no idea--"

"He ought not to have answered them," said the General, looking sternly
at the child.

It seemed that the Marquise and the master of the house both perfectly
understood why the children had come back so suddenly. Mme. d'Aiglemont
looked at her daughter, and rose as if to go to her, but a terrible
convulsion passed over her face, and all that could be read in it was
relentless severity.

"That will do, Helene," she said. "Go into the other room, and leave off
crying."

"What can she have done, poor child!" asked the notary, thinking to
appease the mother's anger and to stop Helene's tears at one stroke. "So
pretty as she his, she must be as good as can be; never anything but a
joy to her mother, I will be bound. Isn't that so, my little girl?"

Helene cowered, looked at her mother, dried her eyes, struggled for
composure, and took refuge in the next room.

"And you, madame, are too good a mother not to love all your children
alike. You are too good a woman, besides, to have any of those
lamentable preferences which have such fatal effects, as we lawyers have
only too much reason to know. Society goes through our hands; we see its
passions in that most revolting form, greed. Here it is the mother of a