ondled by them. Jean, from his
birth, had always been a pattern of sweetness, gentleness, and good
temper, and Pierre had by degrees begun to chafe at everlastingly
hearing the praises of this great lad whose sweetness in his eyes was
indolence, whose gentleness was stupidity, and whose kindliness was
blindness. His parents, whose dream for their sons was some
respectable and undistinguished calling, blamed him for so often
changing his mind, for his fits of enthusiasm, his abortive
beginnings, and all his ineffectual impulses toward generous ideas and
the liberal professions.

Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words:
"Look at Jean and follow his example," but every time he heard them
say "Jean did this--Jean does that," he understood their meaning and
the hint the words conveyed.

Their mother, an orderly soul, a thrifty and rather sentimental woman
of the middle class, with the soul of a soft-hearted book-keeper, was
constantly quenching the little rivalries between her two big sons to
which the petty events of their life in common gave rise day by day.
Another little circumstance, too, just now disturbed her peace of
mind, and she was in fear of some complication; for in the course of
the winter, while her boys were finishing their studies, each in his
own line, she had made the acquaintance of a neighbor, Mme. Rosemilly,
the widow of a captain of a merchantman who had died at sea two years
before. The young widow--quite young, only three-and-twenty--a woman
of strong intellect who knew life by instinct as the free animals do,
as though she had seen, gone through, understood, and weighed every
conceivable contingency, and judged them with a wholesome, strict, and
benevolent mind, had fallen into the habit of calling to work or chat
for an hour in the evening with these friendly neighbors, who would
give her a cup of tea.

Father Roland, always goaded on by his seafaring craze, would question
their new friend about the departed captain; and she would talk of
him, and his voyages, and his old-world tales, without hesitation,
like a resigned and reasonable woman who loves life and respects
death.

The two sons on their return, finding the pretty widow quite at home
in the house forthwith began to court her, less from any wish to charm
her than from the desire to cut each other out.

Their mother, being practical and prudent, sincerely hoped that one of
them might win the young widow, fo