ble nature much
affected by this honest outburst of feeling. "It is true that I did
oppose, so far as I could, my poor Piccola's engagement with M. Gustave.
But I dare not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let
us be just! M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming
indifference and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps
he may be again dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard;
perhaps--" she paused, but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid,
and, clasping her hands, cried out in anguish, "Perhaps dead!--and
we have wronged him! Oh, Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how
discover our boy? Who can tell us where to search? at the hospital--or
in the cemeteries?" At the last word she dropped into a seat, and her
whole frame shook with her sobs.

Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said:

"No, m'amie, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy
son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he
had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I
know where he is to be found."

"You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!"

"Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should
be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night
of the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that
Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans,
and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will
only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame
when they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself.
I did. I heard him speak--heard him denounce Christianity as the
instrument of tyrants."

"Ah!" cried the two women, with a simultaneous shudder.

"When the assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him
seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous
opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it
my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union
on which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved
by what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his
betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once
what he called 'his career as an orator,' and appear no more at such
execrable clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such
ot