help me to find a wife for him: all we ask is that she
should be like you."

In answer to which Fred declared, half-laughing and half-seriously, that
that was his ideal.

She did not believe much of this, but, following her natural instinct,
she assumed the dangerous task of consolation, until, as Madame d'Argy
grew better, she discontinued her daily visits, and Fred, in his turn,
took a habit of going over to Fresne without being invited, and spending
there a good deal of his time.

"Don't send me away. You who are always charitable," he said. "If you
only knew what a pleasure a Parisian conversation is after coming from
Tonquin!"

"But I am so little of a Parisienne, or at least what you mean by that
term, and my conversation is not worth coming for," objected Giselle.

In her extreme modesty she did not realize how much she had gained in
intellectual culture. Women left to themselves have time to read, and
Giselle had done this all the more because she had considered it a duty.
Must she not know enough to instruct and superintend the education of her
son? With much strong feeling, yet with much simplicity, she spoke to
Fred of this great task, which sometimes frightened her; he gave her his
advice, and both discussed together the things that make up a good man.
Giselle brought up frequently the subject of heredity: she named no one,
but Fred could see that she had a secret terror lest Enguerrand, who in
person was very like his father, might also inherit his character. Fears
on this subject, however, appeared unfounded. There was nothing about the
child that was not good; his tastes were those of his mother. He was
passionately fond of Fred, climbing on his lap as soon as the latter
arrived and always maintaining that he, too, wanted a pretty red ribbon
to wear in his buttonhole, a ribbon only to be got by sailing far away
over the seas, like sailors.

"A sailor! Heaven forbid!" cried Madame de Talbrun.

"Oh! sailors come back again. He has come back. Couldn't he take me away
with him soon? I have some stories about cabin-boys who were not much
older than I."

"Let us hope that your friend Fred won't go away," said Giselle. "But why
do you wish to be a cabinboy?"

"Because I want to go away with him, if he does not stay here--because I
like him," answered Enguerrand in a tone of decision.

Hereupon Giselle kissed her boy with more than usual tenderness. He would
not take to the hunting-field, she thought,