ion; they realize all that
they have lost, like the exiled angel weeping at the gates of heaven.
Bankrupts are forbidden to enter the Bourse. Cesar, driven from the
regions of integrity, was like an angel sighing for pardon. For fourteen
months he lived on, full of religious thoughts with which his fall
inspired him, and denying himself every pleasure. Though sure of the
Ragons' friendship, nothing could induce him to dine with them, nor with
the Lebas, nor the Matifats, nor the Protez and Chiffrevilles, not even
with Monsieur Vauquelin; all of whom were eager to do honor to his rare
virtue. Cesar preferred to be alone in his room rather than meet the
eye of a creditor. The warmest greetings of his friends reminded him the
more bitterly of his position. Constance and Cesarine went nowhere. On
Sundays and fete days, the only days when they were at liberty, the two
women went to fetch Cesar at the hour for Mass, and they stayed with
him at Pillerault's after their religious duties were accomplished.
Pillerault often invited the Abbe Loraux, whose words sustained Cesar
in this life of trial. And in this way their lives were spent. The old
ironmonger had too tough a fibre of integrity not to approve of Cesar's
sensitive honor. His mind, however, turned on increasing the number of
persons among whom the poor bankrupt might show himself with an open
brow, and an eye that could meet the eyes of his fellows.

VII

In the month of May, 1821, this family, ever grappling with adversity,
received a first reward for its efforts at a little fete which
Pillerault, the arbiter of its destinies, prepared for it. The last
Sunday of that month was the anniversary of the day on which Constance
had consented to marry Cesar. Pillerault, in concert with the Ragons,
hired a little country-house at Sceaux, and the worthy old ironmonger
silently prepared a joyous house-warming.

"Cesar," said Pillerault, on the Saturday evening, "to-morrow we are all
going into the country, and you must come."

Cesar, who wrote a superb hand, spent his evenings in copying for
Derville and other lawyers. On Sundays, justified by ecclesiastical
permission, he worked like a Negro.

"No," he said, "Monsieur Derville is waiting for a guardianship
account."

"Your wife and daughter ought to have some reward. You will meet none
but our particular friends,--the Abbe Loraux, the Ragons, Popinot, and
his uncle. Besides, I wish it."

Cesar and his wife, carr