, and they listened as if they were
receiving directions for a new performance. They were so quick and
so tractable, that their progress was rapid; and at the second course
Josephine was instructing Michel, and Alfred guiding the rather helpless
but always self-composed Carlotta. After dinner, while Sidonia helped
them to sugar-plums, he without effort extracted from each their master
wish. Josephine desired to be an actress, while Adele confessed that,
though she sighed for the boards, her secret aspirations were for the
grand opera. Carlotta thought the world was made to dance.

'For my part,' said Francis, the eldest son, 'I have no wish to be idle;
but there are two things which I have always desired: first, that I
should travel; and, secondly, that nobody should ever know me.'

'And what would Alfred wish to be?' said Sidonia.

'Indeed, sir, if it did not take me from my brothers and sisters, I
should certainly wish to be a painter.'

'Michel has not yet found out what he wishes,' said Sidonia.

'I wish to play upon the horn,' said Michel, with great determination.

When Sidonia embraced them before their departure, he gave each of the
girls a French shawl; to Francis he gave a pair of English pistols,
to guard him when he travelled; Alfred received a portfolio full of
drawings of costume. It only arrived after dinner, for the town was too
poor to supply anything good enough for the occasion, and Sidonia had
sent a special messenger, the day before, for it to Lille. Michel was
the guardian of a basket laden with good things, which he was to have
the pleasure of dividing among the Baroni family. 'And if your papa come
back to-night,' said Sidonia to Josephine, 'tell him I should like to
have a word with him.'

V.

Sidonia had already commenced that habit which, during subsequent years,
he has so constantly and successfully pursued, namely, of enlisting
in his service all the rare talent which he found lying common and
unappropriated in the great wilderness of the world, no matter if the
object to which it would apply might not immediately be in sight. The
conjuncture would arrive when it would be wanted. Thus he generally
had ready the right person for the occasion; and, whatever might be the
transaction, the human instrument was rarely wanting. Independent of the
power and advantage which this system gave him, his abstract interest in
intellect made the pursuit delightful to him. He liked to give ability