and hopes--hopes of being promoted usher! He was absorbed by
this cruel domestic drama revealed to him in the inscription.
A scion of one of the greatest families of France, a pupil of
the Abbé Bordier, attacked by phthisis in the midst of his now
profitless studies and leaving school, not to enjoy life and
taste the glorious pleasures only those contemn who have drained
them to the dregs, but to die at a southern town in the arms of
his mother whose overwhelming, but still self-conscious grief
was symbolized by this pompous memorial of her sorrow. He could
feel, he could see it all. The three Latin words that represent
the stricken mother saying: "Children, praise ye the Lord who
hath taken away my child," astonished him by their austere piety,
while at the same time he admired the aristocratic bearing that
was preserved even in the presence of death.

He was still lost in these day-dreams when an old priest beckoned
him to walk into an inner room. The worthy man took the letter
of recommendation which Jean handed him, set on his big nose a
pair of spectacles with round glasses for all the world like
the two wheels of a miniature silver chariot, and proceeded to
read the letter, holding it out at the full stretch of his arm.
The windows giving on the garden stood open, and a tendril of
wild vine hung down on to the desk at the foot of a crucifix of
old ivory, while a light breeze set the papers on it fluttering
like white wings.

The Abbé Bordier, his reading concluded, turned to the young man,
showing a deeply lined countenance and a forehead beautifully
polished by age. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.
Then the worn eyelids lifted slowly and discovered a pair of grey