exceeded her ability to gratify
them.

When she would gently remonstrate, Raoul's beautiful eyes would fill
with tears, and in a sad, humble tone he would say:

"Alas! you are right to refuse me this gratification. What claim have I?
I must not forget that I am only the poor son of Valentine, not the rich
banker's child!"

This touching repentance wrung her heart, so that she always ended by
granting him more than he had asked for. The poor boy had suffered
so much that it was her duty to console him, and atone for her past
neglect.

She soon discovered that he was jealous and envious of his two
brothers--for, after all, they were his brothers--Abel and Lucien.

"You never refuse them anything," he would resentfully say: "they were
fortunate enough to enter life by the golden gate. Their every wish
is gratified; they enjoy wealth, position, home affection, and have a
splendid future awaiting them."

"But what is lacking to your happiness, my son? Have you not everything
that money can give? and are you not first in my affections?" asked his
distressed mother.

"What do I want? Apparently nothing, in reality everything. Do I possess
anything legitimately? What right have I to your affection, to the
comforts and luxuries you heap upon me, to the name I bear? Is not my
life an extortion, my very birth a fraud?"

When Raoul talked in this strain, she would weep, and overwhelm him with
caresses and gifts, until she imagined that every jealous thought was
vanished from his mind.

As spring approached, she told Raoul she designed him to spend the
summer in the country, near her villa at St. Germain. She wanted to have
him with her all the time, and this was the only way of gratifying her
wish. She was surprised to find her proposal readily acquiesced in. In
a few days he told her he had rented a little house at Vesinet, and
intended having his furniture moved into it.

"Then, just think, dear mother, what a happy summer we will spend
together!" he said, with beaming eyes.

She was delighted for many reasons, one of which was that the expenses
of the prodigal son would necessarily be lessened. Anxiety as to the
exhausted state of her finances made her bold enough to chide him at the
dinner-table one day for having lost two thousand francs at the races
that morning.

"You are severe, my dear," said M. Fauvel with the carelessness of a
rich man, who considered this sum a mere trifle. "Mamma Lagors won't
object to