ith such rigid economy; for a man is always esteemed who
has money, and does not spend it.

"He is not the man ever to squander what he has," the neighbors
repeated.

The persons whom he received on Saturdays believed him more than
comfortably off. When M. Desclavettes and M. Chapelain had
complained to their hearts' contents, the one of the shop, the
other of his office, they never failed to add,

"You laugh at us, because you are engaged in large operations, where
people make as much money as they like."

They seemed to hold his financial capacities in high estimation.
They consulted him, and followed his advice.

M. Desormeaux was wont to say,

"Oh! he knows what he is about."

And Mme. Favoral tried to persuade herself, that, in this respect
at least, her husband was a remarkable man. She attributed his
silence and his distractions to the grave cares that filled his mind.
In the same manner that he had once announced to her that they had
enough to live on, she expected him, some fine morning, to tell her
that he was a millionaire.

IX

But the respite granted by fate to Mme. Favoral was drawing to an
end: her trials were about to return more poignant than ever,
occasioned, this time, by her children, hitherto her whole happiness
and her only consolation.

Maxence was nearly twelve. He was a good little fellow, intelligent,
studious at times, but thoughtless in the extreme, and of a
turbulence which nothing could tame.

At the Massin School, where he had been sent, he made his teachers'
hair turn white; and not a week went by that he did not signalize
himself by some fresh misdeed.

A father like any other would have paid but slight attention to the
pranks of a schoolboy, who, after all, ranked among the first of his
class, and of whom the teachers themselves, whilst complaining, said,

"Bash! What matters it, since the heart is sound and the mind sane?"

But M. Favoral took every thing tragically. If Maxence was kept in,
or otherwise punished, he pretended that it reflected upon himself,
and that his son was disgracing him.

If a report came home with this remark, "execrable conduct," he fell
into the most violent passion, and seemed to lose all control of
himself.

"At your age," he would shout to the terrified boy, "I was working
in a factory, and earning my livelihood. Do you suppose that I
will not tire of making sacrifices to procure you the advantages
of an education which I la