for she presently returned with a book in her hand.

"Here, my dear child," she said, "are the prescriptions of a great
physician of souls. When the things of ordinary life have not given us
the happiness we expected of them, we must seek for happiness in a
higher life. Here is the key of a new world. Read night and morning a
chapter of this book; but bring your full attention to bear upon what
you read; study the words as you would a foreign language. At the end
of a month you will be another man. It is now twenty years that I have
read a chapter every day; and my three friends, Messieurs Nicolas,
Alain, and Joseph, would no more fail in that practice than they would
fail in getting up and going to bed. Do as they do for love of God,
for love of me," she said, with a divine serenity, an august
confidence.

Godefroid turned over the book and read upon its back in gilt letters,
IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST. The simplicity of this old woman, her
youthful candor, her certainty of doing a good deed, confounded the
ex-dandy. Madame de la Chanterie's face wore a rapturous expression,
and her attitude was that of a woman who was offering a hundred
thousand francs to a merchant on the verge of bankruptcy.

"I have used that volume," she said, "for twenty-six years. God grant
its touch may be contagious. Go now and buy me another copy; for this
is the hour when persons come here who must not be seen."

Godefroid bowed and went to his room, where he flung the book upon the
table, exclaiming,--

"Poor, good woman! Well, so be it!"