and moistened a cigar.

"I can't accept your invitation; I am to take our mother to dine at a
table d'hote."

"Ah! how is she, the poor, dear woman?"

"She is pretty well," answered the painter, "I have just repainted our
father's portrait, and aunt Descoings's. I have also painted my own,
and I should like to give our mother yours, in the uniform of the
dragoons of the Imperial Guard."

"Very good."

"You will have to come and sit."

"I'm obliged to be in this hen-coop from nine o'clock till five."

"Two Sundays will be enough."

"So be it, little man," said Napoleon's staff officer, lighting his
cigar at the porter's lamp.

When Joseph related Philippe's position to his mother, on their way to
dinner in the rue de Beaune, he felt her arm tremble in his, and joy
lighted up her worn face; the poor soul breathed like one relieved of
a heavy weight. The next day, inspired by joy and gratitude, she paid
Joseph a number of little attentions; she decorated his studio with
flowers, and bought him two stands of plants. On the first Sunday when
Philippe was to sit, Agathe arranged a charming breakfast in the
studio. She laid it all out on the table; not forgetting a flask of
brandy, which, however, was only half full. She herself stayed behind
a screen, in which she made a little hole. The ex-dragoon sent his
uniform the night before, and she had not refrained from kissing it.
When Philippe was placed, in full dress, on one of those straw horses,
all saddled, which Joseph had hired for the occasion, Agathe, fearing
to betray her presence, mingled the soft sound of her tears with the
conversation of the two brothers. Philippe posed for two hours before
and two hours after breakfast. At three o'clock in the afternoon, he
put on his ordinary clothes and, as he lighted a cigar, he proposed to
his brother to go and dine together in the Palais-Royal, jingling gold
in his pocket as he spoke.

"No," said Joseph, "it frightens me to see gold about you."

"Ah! you'll always have a bad opinion of me in this house," cried the
colonel in a thundering voice. "Can't I save my money, too?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Agathe, coming out of her hiding-place, and kissing
her son. "Let us go and dine with him, Joseph!"

Joseph dared not scold his mother. He went and dressed himself; and
Philippe took them to the Rocher de Cancale, where he gave them a
splendid dinner, the bill for which amounted to a hundred francs.

"The devil!" muttere