nd
scenes.

Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to
reach his lodgings, to throw aside his workman's blouse, and to bury
himself in his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he
had used at school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was
astonished to find with what facility he regained all that he thought
he had forever lost. Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected
difficulty, and it was touching to see the young man, whose hands were
distorted and clumsy from handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside
his pen in despair. At his side Belisaire sat sewing the straw of
his summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of a savage
assistant at a magician's incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned,
grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
pedler's big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student's pen
scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up
and thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere;
and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of other
lamps, and other shadows courageously prolonging their labors into the
middle of the night.

After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It had
been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to the
poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he wrote,
thought, "How happy they are." His own happiness came on Sundays. Never
did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as did Jack on those
days, for he was determined that nothing about him should remind Cecile
of his daily toil; well might he have been taken for Prince Rodolphe had
he been seen as he started off.

Delicious day! without hours or minutes--a day of uninterrupted
felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in
the salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and Cecile and the doctor
made him feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined,
M. Rivals examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and
explained all that had puzzled the youth.

Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they
often passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
experiments. So black was the smoke that poured