linen to be used, and arranged the dessert. Having attended with joy
to these details, which touched Roger, she placed the infant in her
pretty cot and went out on to the balcony, whence she presently saw
the carriage which her friend, as he grew to riper years, now used
instead of the smart tilbury of his youth. After submitting to the
first fire of Caroline's embraces and the kisses of the little rogue
who addressed him as papa, Roger went to the cradle, looked at his
little sleeping daughter, kissed her forehead, and then took out of
his pocket a document covered with black writing.

"Caroline," said he, "here is the marriage portion of Mademoiselle
Eugenie de Bellefeuille."

The mother gratefully took the paper, a deed of gift of securities in
the State funds.

"Buy why," said she, "have you given Eugenie three thousand francs a
year, and Charles no more than fifteen hundred?"

"Charles, my love, will be a man," replied he. "Fifteen hundred francs
are enough for him. With so much for certain, a man of courage is
above poverty. And if by chance your son should turn out a nonentity,
I do not wish him to be able to play the fool. If he is ambitious,
this small income will give him a taste for work.--Eugenie is a girl;
she must have a little fortune."

The father then turned to play with his boy, whose effusive affection
showed the independence and freedom in which he was brought up. No
sort of shyness between the father and child interfered with the charm
which rewards a parent for his devotion; and the cheerfulness of the