contractor at Versailles.

Every remonstrance and every prayer were useless; he brought forward the
necessity of initiating himself into all the details of an important
contract, the facilities he should have in his new position of improving
himself in his trade, and the hopes he had of turning his knowledge to
advantage. At, last, when his mother, having come to the end of her
arguments, began to cry, he hastily kissed her, and went away that he
might avoid any further remonstrances.

He had been absent a year, and there was nothing to give them hopes of
his return. His parents hardly saw him once a month, and then he only
stayed a few moments with them.

"I have been punished where I had hoped to be rewarded," Michael said to
me just now. "I had wished for a saving and industrious son, and God has
given me an ambitious and avaricious one! I had always said to myself
that when once he was grown up we should have him always with us, to
recall our youth and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always
thinking of getting him married, and having children again to care for.
You know women always will busy themselves about others. As for me, I
thought of him working near my bench, and singing his new songs; for he
has learnt music, and is one of the best singers at the Orpheon.

A dream, sir, truly! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to flight,
and remembers neither father nor mother. Yesterday, for instance, was
the day we expected him; he should have come to supper with us. No
Robert to-day, either! He has had some plan to finish, or some bargain
to arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after
the customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it