d as it were, while Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch
stood on either side. Jack saw at once that there were the tribunal, the
judge, and the witnesses, while his mother sat a little apart at an open
window.

"Come here!" said the poet, sternly, and with such an assumption of
dignity that one was tempted to believe that the Henry Deux chair itself
had spoken. "I have often told you that life is not a romance; you have
seen me crushed, worn and weary with my literary labors; your turn
has now come to enter the arena. You are a man,"--the child was but
twelve,--"you are a man now, and must prove yourself to be one. For
a year,--the year that I have been supposed to neglect you,--I have
permitted you to run free, and, thanks to my peculiar talents of
observation, I have been able to decide on your path in life. I have
watched the development of your instincts, tastes, and habits, and,
with your mother's consent, have taken a step of importance." Jack was
frightened, and turned to his mother for sympathy. Charlotte still sat
gazing from the window, shading her eyes from the sun. D'Argenton called
on Labassandre to produce the letter he had received. The singer pulled
out a large, ill-folded peasant's letter, and read it aloud:--

"FOUNDRY D'INDRET.

"My Dear Brother: I have spoken to the master in regard to
the young man, your friend's son, and he is willing, in
spite of his youth, to accept him as an apprentice. He may
live under our roof, and in four years I promise you that he
shall know his trade. Everybody is well here. My wife and
Zenaide send messages.

"Rondic."

"You hear, Jack," interrupted D'Argenton; "in four years you will hold a
position second to none in the world,--you will be a good workman."

The child had seen the working classes in Paris; above all, he had seen
a noisy crowd of men in dirty blouses leaving a shop at six o'clock in
the _Passage des Douze Maisons_. The idea of wearing a blouse was
the first that struck him. He remembered his mother's tone of
contempt,--"Those are workmen, those men in blouses!"--he remembered the
care with which she avoided touching them in the street as she passed.
But he was more moved at the thought of leaving the beautiful forest,
the summits of whose waving trees he even now caught a glimpse of from
the window, the Rivals, and above all his mother, whom he loved so much
and had found again after so much difficulty.

Charlotte,