dear child, I should wish for nothing but the grave; but we are not
bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty.

"Do not fear for my health, good Jacques; I was never better! I do
not grow old at all, for fear of making you unhappy. I want
nothing, and I live like a lady. I even had some money over this
year, and as my drawers shut very badly, I put it into the savings'
bank, where I have opened an account in your name. So, when you
come back, you will find yourself with an income. I have also
furnished your chest with new linen, and I have knitted you three
new sea-jackets.

"All your friends are well. Your cousin is just dead, leaving his
widow in difficulties. I gave her your thirty francs' remittance
and said that you had sent it her; and the poor woman remembers you
day and night in her prayers. So, you see, I have put that money in
another sort of savings' bank; but there it is our hearts that get
the interest.

"Good-bye, dear Jacquot. Write to me often, and always remember the
good God, and your old mother,

"PHROSINE MILLOT."


Good son, and worthy mother! how such examples bring us back to a love
for the human race! In a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the
fate of the savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he; but
impartial observation soon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on
examination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, the good so