r and felt delighted only when
Vaudrey, by chance, listened to her counsel.

"I love you so dearly!" she confessed with the unlimited candor of a
poor creature who has but a single affection, a single pretext for
loving.

He saw in the life he led, only the penumbra: his neglected youth, his
hopes fled, his fears, the disgust which at times filled him as he
thought of the never-ending recommencements and trickeries of political
life. So dearly cherished, so beloved, it seemed to him, nevertheless,
that his life lacked something. He would have liked a child, a son to
bring up, a domestic tie, since political conditions prevented him from
accomplishing a civic duty. Ah! yes, a son, a being to mould, a brow to
kiss, a soul to fashion after the image of his own, a child who would
not know all the sorrows of life that his own generation had laid on
him! Perhaps it was only a child that he needed. Something, however, he
evidently lacked.

Still he smiled, always in love with that young woman of twenty-four
years, delicate, slender, and full of the fears and artlessness of a
child. Accustomed to the quiet solitude of the house of her guardian,
she, when at Paris, in her husband's study, arranging his books, his
papers, his legislative plans and reports, sought to surround her dear
Sulpice with the comforting felicity of bourgeois happiness that was
enjoyed calmly, like a cordial sipped at the fireside.

Then suddenly one day, the news of a startling political change broke in
on this household.

Sulpice reached home one evening at one and the same time nervous,
anxious, and happy.

His name was on almost every lip, in connection with a ministerial
combination. His last speech on domestic policy had more than ever
brought him into prominence and he was considered to have boldly
contributed to the development of a fearful crisis.

A minister! he might, before the morning, be a minister! His policy was
triumphant.

The advocate Collard--of Nantes,--who was pointed out as the future head
of the Cabinet, was one of his intimate friends. It was
suggested--positively--that Sulpice should be intrusted with one of the
most _important portfolios_, that of the Interior or of Foreign Affairs,
the _lesser portfolios_ being considered those of Public Instruction and
of Agriculture and Commerce, the former of which concerns itself with
the spiritual welfare of the people, and the latter with their food
supply.

Sulpice told all t