the world,--and as for patience and endurance!--why, no one in these
days has the patience to endure even the least contradiction! Two
men,--aye even brothers,--will fight for a word like mongrels
quarrelling over a bone;--and two women will scream themselves
hoarse if one should have a lover more than the other--asking your
pardon, Monseigneur, for such wicked talk! Still, wicked as it may
be, it is true--and not all the powers of Heaven seem to care about
making things better. And for this boy,--believe me,--you had better
leave him to his own way--for there will be no chance of getting
such a poor little waif into the school unless his father and mother
are known, or unless someone will adopt him, which is not likely . . .
for Rouen is full of misery, and there are enough mouths to feed in
most families--and . . . mon Dieu!--is that the child?"

Thus abruptly she broke off her speech, utterly taken aback as she
suddenly perceived the little Manuel standing before her. Poorly
clad in the roughest garments as he was, his grace and plaintive
beauty moved her heart to quick compassion for his loneliness as he
came towards the Cardinal, who, extending one hand, drew him gently
to his side and asked if he had slept well?

"Thanks to your goodness, my lord Cardinal," the boy replied, "I
slept so well that I thought I was in Heaven! I heard the angels
singing in my dreams;--yes!--I heard all the music of a happy world,
in which there never had been known a sin or sorrow!"

He rested his fair head lightly against the Cardinal's arm and
smiled. Madame Patoux gazed at him in fascinated silence,--gazed and
gazed,--till she found her eyes suddenly full of tears. Then she
turned away to hide them,--but not before Cardinal Bonpre had