y parents. Accordingly I went to the
'Commers-haus', and there I was much amused. N. and T. began upon me
with the everlasting jokes about Wonsiedel; that went on until eleven
o'clock. But afterwards N. and T. began to torment me to go to the
wine-shop; I refused as long as I could. But as, at last, they seemed to
think that it was from contempt of them that I would not go and drink a
glass of Rhine wine with them, I did not dare resist longer.
Unfortunately, they did not stop at Braunberger; and while my glass was
still half full, N. ordered a bottle of champagne. When the first had
disappeared, T. ordered a second; then, even before this second battle
was drunk, both of them ordered a third in my name and in spite of me. I
returned home quite giddy, and threw myself on the sofa, where I slept
for about an hour, and only went to bed afterwards.

"Thus passed this shameful day, in which I have not thought enough of my
kind and worthy parents, who are leading a poor and hard life, and in
which I suffered myself to be led away by the example of people who have
money into spending four florins--an expenditure which was useless, and
which would have kept the whole family for two days. Pardon me, my God,
pardon me, I beseech Thee, and receive the vow that I make never to fall
into the same fault again. In future I will live even more abstemiously
than I usually do, so as to repair the fatal traces in my poor cash-box
of my extravagance, and not to be obliged to ask money of my mother
before the day when she thinks of sending me some herself."

Then, at the very time when the poor young man reproaches himself as if
with a crime with having spent four florins, one of his cousins, a widow,
dies and leaves three orphan children. He runs immediately to carry the
first consolations to the unhappy little creatures, entreats his mother
to take charge of the youngest, and overjoyed at her answer, thanks her
thus:--

"Far the very keen joy that you have given me by your letter, and for the
very dear tone in which your soul speaks to me, bless you, O my mother!
As I might have hoped and been sure, you have taken little Julius, and
that fills me afresh with the deepest gratitude towards you, the rather
that, in my constant trust in your goodness, I had already in her
lifetime given our good little cousin the promise that you are fulfilling
for me after her death."

About March, Sand, though he did not fall ill, had an indispo