t?"

My uncle buried his face in his hands.

"Last night, my poor child, only last night!"

"I thought so."

"I was weak I listened to the prompting of anger; I have compromised
your future. Fabien, forgive me in your turn."

He rose from the table, and came and put a trembling hand on my
shoulder.

"No, uncle, you've not compromised anything, and I've nothing to forgive
you."

"You wouldn't take the practice if I could still offer it to you?"

"No, uncle."

"Upon your word?"

"Upon my word!"

M. Mouillard drew himself up, beaming:

"Ah! Thank you for that speech, Fabien; you have relieved me of a great
weight."

With one corner of his napkin he wiped away two tears, which, having
arisen in time of war, continued to flow in time of peace.

"If Mademoiselle Jeanne, in addition to all her other perfections,
brings you fortune, Fabien, if your future is assured--"

"My dear Monsieur Mouillard," broke in the Academician with
ill-concealed satisfaction. "My colleagues call me rich. They slander
me. Works on numismatics do not make a man rich. Monsieur Fabien, who
made some investigations into the subject, can prove it to you. No; I
possess no more than an honorable competence, which does not give me
everything, but lets me lack nothing."

"Aurea mediocritas," exclaimed my uncle, delighted with his quotation.
"Oh, that Horace! What a fellow he was!"

"He was indeed. Well, as I was saying, our daily bread is assured; but
that's no reason why my son-in-law should vegetate in idleness which I
do not consider my due, even at my age."

"Quite right."

"So he must work."

"But what is he to work at?"

"There are other professions besides the law, Monsieur Mouillard. I
have studied Fabien. His temperament is somewhat wayward. With special
training he might have become an artist. Lacking that early moulding
into shape, he never will be anything more than a dreamer."

"I should not have expressed it so well, but I have often thought the
same."

"With a temperament like your nephew's," continued M. Charnot, "the best
he can do is to enter upon a career in which the ideal has some part;
not a predominant, but a sufficient part, something between prose and
poetry."

"Let him be a notary, then."

"No, that's wholly prose; he shall be a librarian."

"A librarian?"

"Yes, Monsieur Mouillard; there are a few little libraries in Paris,
which are as quiet as groves, and in which places are to be got that