ot
water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her
grandmother's death had mixed the doctor's grog. And the good man
had not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a
melancholy tone, "diminished daily the quantity of alcohol."

When she had served her grandfather, Cecile turned toward their guest.

"Do you drink brandy?" she asked.

"Does he drink brandy?" said the doctor, with a laugh, "and he in an
engine-room for three years? Don't you know--ignorant little puss that
you are--that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board
a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
draught. Make Jack's strong, my dear."

She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.

"Will you have some?"

"No, mademoiselle," he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
withdrew his glass,--for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and
which are only understood by those whom they address.

"Upon my word, a conversion!" said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in
God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work
in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had
every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking
to himself, and gesticulating wildly. "Yes," he exclaimed,
"M. d'Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with
my equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them." It was a
very long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New
thoughts and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was Cecile's image.
What a marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that
had he been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to
become his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road,
he found himself face to face with Mother Sale, who was dragging a fagot
of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his
present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so
terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the
wood.

That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
autumna