me by their sickbeds as at their stinted boards.
Nor does he confine his visitations to the limits of our Faubourg; he
extends his travels to Montmartre and Belleville. As to our upper world,
he does not concern himself much with its changes. He says that we have
destroyed too much ever to rebuild solidly; and that whatever we do
build could be upset any day by a Paris mob, which he declares to be
the only institution we have left. A wonderful fellow is Raoul,--full of
mind, though he does little with it; full of heart, which he devotes
to suffering humanity, and to a poetic, knightly reverence (not to be
confounded with earthly love, and not to be degraded into that sickly
sentiment called Platonic affection) for the Comtesse di Rimini, who is
six years older than himself, and who is very faithfully attached to
her husband, Raoul's intimate friend, whose honour he would guard as
his own. It is an episode in the drama of Parisian life, and one not so
uncommon as the malignant may suppose. Di Rimini knows and approves of
his veneration; my mother, the best of women, sanctions it, and deems
truly that it preserves Raoul safe from all the temptations to which
ignobler youth is exposed. I mention this lest you should imagine there
was anything in Raoul's worship of his star less pure than it is.
For the rest, Raoul, to the grief and amazement of that disciple of
Voltaire, my respected father, is one of the very few men I know in our
circles who is sincerely religious,--an orthodox Catholic,--and the only
man I know who practises the religion he professes; charitable, chaste,
benevolent; and no bigot, no intolerant ascetic. His only weakness
is his entire submission to the worldly common-sense of his
good-for-nothing, covetous, ambitious brother Enguerrand. I cannot say
how I love him for that. If he had not such a weakness, his excellence
would gall me, and I believe I should hate him."

Alain bowed his head at this eulogium. Such had been the character that
a few months ago he would have sought as example and model. He seemed to
gaze upon a flattered portrait of himself as he had been.

"But," said Enguerrand, "I have not come here to indulge in the overflow
of brotherly affection. I come to take you to your relation, the
Duchesse of Tarascon. I have pledged myself to her to bring you, and she
is at home on purpose to receive you."

"In that case I cannot be such a churl as to refuse. And, indeed, I no
longer feel quite