Alphonse, was an unbroken
colt and madcap, articled to one of the principal legal firms in
the city. Although in years he was but ancle deep, he was already
in potations full five fathoms; a worthy graduate of the
licentiousness of the town, and boon companion of the dissolute
Narcisse; whom, in a giddy moment he had made acquainted with the
family matrimonial design on young Montigny. Narcisse, in his turn,
had a domestic story, that instinct, revenge, and a mother's command
impelled him to relate, and which he told to the rollicking, but
now attentive Alphonse, with a wicked glee, raised by the prospect
of mischief. A discovery had been made by his brooding and despised
parent. Chance had thrown in her way an opportunity for which she
had watched for years. Mona Macdonald had visited the advocate at
his dwelling, and her presence had stirred not only the womanly
curiosity of the lynx-eyed Babet Blais, but her malicious jealousy
of one whom she could never but regard as a hateful and favored
rival. So, overhearing them in earnest conversation in the library,
she, with the unrestrained enjoyment of a low, untutored nature,
stole to the door, that was slightly ajar, and there, with her ear
applied to the interstice, learned the circumstance of the discovered
interview between Claude and Amanda at Stillyside, with their
plighted troth, not disapproved of by the advocate. Swelling with
envy and anger, and recollecting what Narcisse had told her of the
predilection and hopes of Alphonse Duchatel's sister in regard to
Claude Montigny, she, with an intent to dash the proud prospect
which seemed to be opening before the child of an odious--and as
she deemed, unlawful competitor for the advocate's favors, conceived
the spiteful idea of informing the Duchatels of what she had just
discovered. Further to instigate her, all the real and all the
fancied wrongs that her son had suffered from his father rose up
before her, magnified by her imagination, and prompting her to the
gratification of her unreasoning spleen. Her purpose was soon put
into execution. That night Narcisse came home sober; and giving
him some warm supper, followed by a delicacy that she had set aside
for him as a dessert, and which, with a half human, half animal
affection, she watched him devour, she broke the subject to him.
He grinned with an infantile delight, as he heard the important
secret, and discussed with her the project that might hinder the
good fo