hile he made a survey of the astonished elderly
applicant for admission.

"What is more, here is M. Jonathan," the Swiss remarked; "speak to him."

Fellow-feeling of some kind, or curiosity, brought the two old men
together in a central space in the great entrance-court. A few blades of
grass were growing in the crevices of the pavement; a terrible silence
reigned in that great house. The sight of Jonathan's face would have
made you long to understand the mystery that brooded over it, and that
was announced by the smallest trifles about the melancholy place.

When Raphael inherited his uncle's vast estate, his first care had been
to seek out the old and devoted servitor of whose affection he knew that
he was secure. Jonathan had wept tears of joy at the sight of his young
master, of whom he thought he had taken a final farewell; and when the
marquis exalted him to the high office of steward, his happiness could
not be surpassed. So old Jonathan became an intermediary power between
Raphael and the world at large. He was the absolute disposer of his
master's fortune, the blind instrument of an unknown will, and a sixth
sense, as it were, by which the emotions of life were communicated to
Raphael.

"I should like to speak with M. Raphael, sir," said the elderly person
to Jonathan, as he climbed up the steps some way, into a shelter from
the rain.

"To speak with my Lord the Marquis?" the steward cried. "He scarcely
speaks even to me, his foster-father!"

"But I am likewise his foster-father," said the old man. "If your wife
was his foster-mother, I fed him myself with the milk of the Muses. He
is my nursling, my child, carus alumnus! I formed his mind, cultivated
his understanding, developed his genius, and, I venture to say it, to
my own honor and glory. Is he not one of the most remarkable men of our
epoch? He was one of my pupils in two lower forms, and in rhetoric. I am
his professor."

"Ah, sir, then you are M. Porriquet?"

"Exactly, sir, but----"

"Hush! hush!" Jonathan called to two underlings, whose voices broke the
monastic silence that shrouded the house.

"But is the Marquis ill, sir?" the professor continued.

"My dear sir," Jonathan replied, "Heaven only knows what is the matter
with my master. You see, there are not a couple of houses like ours
anywhere in Paris. Do you understand? Not two houses. Faith, that
there are not. My Lord the Marquis had this hotel purchased for him; it
formerly belong