ear you say merely to amuse me you would make your reputation. Fancy,
monsieur, my dear old father invents wonderful stories when I have no
novels to read; he often puts me to sleep in that way. His voice
lulls me, and he quiets my mind with his wit. Who can ever reward him?
Auguste, my child, you ought for my sake, to kiss the print of your
grandfather's footsteps."

The young man raised his beautiful moist eyes to his mother, and the
look he gave her, full of a long-repressed compassion, was a poem.
Godefroid rose, took the lad's hand, and pressed it.

"God has placed two angels beside you, madame," he said.

"Yes, I know that. And for that reason I often reproach myself for
harassing them. Come, my dear Auguste, and kiss your mother. He is a
child, monsieur, of whom all mothers might be proud; pure as gold, frank
and honest, a soul without sin--but too passionate a soul, alas! like
that of his poor mother. Perhaps God has fastened me in this bed to
keep me from the follies of women--who have too much heart," she added,
smiling.

Godefroid replied with a smile and a bow.

"Adieu, monsieur; and thank your friend for the instrument; tell him it
makes the happiness of a poor cripple."

"Monsieur," said Godefroid, when they were alone in the latter's room.
"I think I may assure you that you shall not be robbed by that trio of
bloodsuckers. I have the necessary sum to free your book, but you must
first show me your written agreement with them. And after that, in order
to do still more for you, you must let me have your work to read,--not
I myself, of course, I have not knowledge enough to judge of it, but a
former magistrate, a lawyer of eminence and of perfect integrity, who
will undertake, according to what he thinks of the book, to find you an
honorable publisher with whom you can make an equitable agreement. This,
however, I will not insist upon. Meantime here are five hundred francs,"
he added, giving a bank-note to the stupefied old man, "to meet
your present needs. I do not ask for any receipt; you will be under
obligations to your own conscience only, and that conscience is not to
move you until you have recovered a sufficient competence,--I undertake
to pay Halpersohn."

"Who are you, then?" asked the old man, dropping into a chair.

"I myself," replied Godefroid, "am nothing; but I serve powerful persons
to whom your distress is known, and who feel an interest in you. Ask me
nothing more about them."