and who has braced his mind to some
stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered
bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta
did not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said,
"Pardon, dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it
is not our hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we
could. Now it speaks for itself; 'la fame e una bretta festin.'"

"Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!" cried Madame Rameau, bursting into
tears. "So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring
such want on you! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us
thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!"

"Do not degrade us, my wife," said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity,
"by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our
ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to
find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs
and a half a-day to a pere de famille, and on that pay we all can at
least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many
men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the
battle on the next sortie."

"It shall not be so," exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding
her arm round her husband's neck. "I loved my son better than thee
once--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than
peril thy life, my Jacques! Madame," she continued, turning to the
Venosta, "thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union
between thy young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a
mother is so selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I
thought that only through marriage with one so pure, so noble, so
holy, Gustave could be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so
heartless to his parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be
redeemed. I brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her
from it. I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it.
I know how miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her
sublime devotion to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the
real state of her heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would
the union do! Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!"

"Stay, Madame!" exclaimed the Venosta, her excita