about to give way under the shock of this happiness.

"My God!" said Felix, terrified, "he is ill; ring the bell, I entreat
you, Monsieur Minard."

And he ran to the old man, loosened his cravat and unfastened the collar
of his shirt, striking him in the palms of his hands. But the sudden
faintness was but momentary; almost immediately himself again, Phellion
gathered his son to his heart, and holding him long in his embrace, he
said, in a voice broken by the tears that came to put an end to this
shock of joy:--

"Felix, my noble son! so great in heart, so great in mind!"

The bell had been rung by Minard with magisterial force, and with such
an accent that the whole household was alarmed, and came running in.

"It is nothing, it is nothing," said Phellion to the servants, sending
them away. But almost at the same moment, seeing his wife, who now
entered the room, he resumed his habitual solemnity.

"Madame Phellion," he said, pointing to Felix, "how many years is it
since you brought that young man into the world?"

Madame Phellion, bewildered by the question, hesitated a moment, and
then said:--

"Twenty-five years next January."

"Have you not thought, until now, that God had amply granted your
maternal desires by making this child of your womb an honest man, a
pious son, and by gifting him for mathematics, that Science of sciences,
with an aptitude sufficiently remarkable?"

"I have," said Madame Phellion, understanding less and less what her
husband was coming to.

"Well," continued Phellion, "you owe to God an additional thanksgiving,
for He has granted that you be the mother of a man of genius; his toil,
which lately we rebuked, and which made us fear for the reason of our
child, was the way--the rough and jagged way--by which men come to
fame."

"Ah ca!" cried Madame Phellion, "can't you stop coming yourself to an
explanation of what you mean, and get there?"

"Your son," said Minard, cautious this time in measuring the joy he was
about to bestow, fearing another fainting-fit of happiness, "has just
made a very important scientific discovery."

"Is it true?" said Madame Phellion, going up to Felix, and taking him by
both hands as she looked at him lovingly.

"When I say important," continued Minard, "I am only sparing your
maternal emotions; it is, in truth, a sublime, a dazzling discovery.
He is only twenty-five years old, but his name, from henceforth, is
immortal."

"And this is the man,"