t time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant
disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us."

As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with
much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart
from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least
intimidated by her coldness, said at once, "I ought to tell you, madame,
that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed
through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions
can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to
which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk
and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere,
and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer,
and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of
renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch
get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him
forever."

"Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an
insult?" and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with
a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her
son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off
some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He
turned pale when he saw her.

"You have come to take me away," he exclaimed.

"Not at all," she answered, hastily. "The doctor wishes you to remain,
and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
tenderly?"

For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother,
and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly
caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked
tired and troubled.

"We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese
prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D'Argenton has
translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese
tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that
literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent,
and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is
dead. Do you remember him?"

At this moment Cecile came in and was received by Charlotte with the