te as it is difficult to find honest
agents."

"But how did you lose your thirty thousand a year?" asked Oscar.

"As you lost your arm," replied the son of Czerni-Georges, curtly.

"Then you must have shared in some brilliant action," remarked Oscar,
with a sarcasm not unmixed with bitterness.

"Parbleu! I've too many--shares! that's just what I wanted to sell."

By this time they had arrived at Saint-Leu-Taverny, where all the
passengers got out while the coach changed horses. Oscar admired the
liveliness which Pierrotin displayed in unhooking the traces from the
whiffle-trees, while his driver cleared the reins from the leaders.

"Poor Pierrotin," thought he; "he has stuck like me,--not far advanced
in the world. Georges has fallen low. All the others, thanks to
speculation and to talent, have made their fortune. Do we breakfast
here, Pierrotin?" he said, aloud, slapping that worthy on the shoulder.

"I am not the driver," said Pierrotin.

"What are you, then?" asked Colonel Husson.

"The proprietor," replied Pierrotin.

"Come, don't be vexed with an old acquaintance," said Oscar, motioning
to his mother, but still retaining his patronizing manner. "Don't you
recognize Madame Clapart?"

It was all the nobler of Oscar to present his mother to Pierrotin,
because, at that moment, Madame Moreau de l'Oise, getting out of the
coupe, overheard the name, and stared disdainfully at Oscar and his
mother.

"My faith! madame," said Pierrotin, "I should never have known you; nor
you, either, monsieur; the sun burns black in Africa, doesn't it?"

The species of pity which Oscar thus felt for Pierrotin was the last
blunder that vanity ever led our hero to commit, and, like his other
faults, it was punished, but very gently, thus:--

Two months after his official installation at Beaumont-sur-Oise, Oscar
was paying his addresses to Mademoiselle Georgette Pierrotin, whose
'dot' amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he married
the pretty daughter of the proprietor of the stage-coaches of the Oise,
toward the close of the winter of 1838.

The adventure of the journey to Presles was a lesson to Oscar Husson in
discretion; his disaster at Florentine's card-party strengthened him in
honesty and uprightness; the hardships of his military career taught him
to understand the social hierarchy and to yield obedience to his lot.
Becoming wise and capable, he was happy. The Comte de Serizy, before his
death, obta