than I usually do, so as to repair the fatal traces in my poor cash-box
of my extravagance, and not to be obliged to ask money of my mother
before the day when she thinks of sending me some herself."

Then, at the very time when the poor young man reproaches himself as if
with a crime with having spent four florins, one of his cousins, a widow,
dies and leaves three orphan children. He runs immediately to carry the
first consolations to the unhappy little creatures, entreats his mother
to take charge of the youngest, and overjoyed at her answer, thanks her
thus:--

"Far the very keen joy that you have given me by your letter, and for the
very dear tone in which your soul speaks to me, bless you, O my mother!
As I might have hoped and been sure, you have taken little Julius, and
that fills me afresh with the deepest gratitude towards you, the rather
that, in my constant trust in your goodness, I had already in her
lifetime given our good little cousin the promise that you are fulfilling
for me after her death."

About March, Sand, though he did not fall ill, had an indisposition that
obliged him to go and take the waters; his mother happened at the time to
be at the ironworks of Redwitz, same twelve or fifteen miles from
Wonsiedel, where the mineral springs are found. Sand established himself
there with his mother, and notwithstanding his desire to avoid
interrupting his work, the time taken up by baths, by invitations to
dinners, and even by the walks which his health required, disturbed the
regularity of his usual existence and awakened his remorse. Thus we find
these lines written in his journal for April 13th:

"Life, without some high aim towards which all thoughts and actions tend,