horse, the void left by his failure to learn a trade was filled up by
a daily and regular task: what was better, an affection had crept into
his heart. He loved his charge, and his charge loved him.

This great hotel, the world, seemed to be promising entertainment then
for both man and beast, when an epoch of disaster came along--a season
of cholera. In the villages where Joliet's business lay the doors just
beginning to be hospitable were promptly shut against him. Where the
good townsmen had recognized Assistance in his person, they now saw
Contagion.

[Illustration: DINNER-TIME!]

If he had been a single man, he could have lain back and waited for
better times. But he now had two mouths to feed. He kissed his horse
and took a resolution.

He had never been a mendicant. "Beggars don't go as hungry as I have
gone," said he. "But what will you have? Nobility obliges. My father
was a gentleman. I have broken stones, but never the _devoirs_ of my
order."

He left the groups of villages among which his new industry had lain.
The cholera was behind him: trouble, beggary perhaps, was before him.
As night was coming on, Joliet, listlessly leading his horse, which he
was too considerate to ride, saw upon the road a woman whom he took
in the obscurity for a farmer's wife of the better class or a decent
villager. For an introduction the opportunity was favorable enough.
On her side, the _quasi_ farmer's wife, seeing in the dusk an honest
fellow dragging a horse, took him for a "gentleman's gentleman" at