"My dear friend, this is but a kindly and delicate mode of relieving me
from the dangers of war. I have, as you must be conscious, no practical
knowledge of business. Hebert can be implicitly trusted, and will carry
out your views with a zeal equal to mine, and with infinitely more
ability."

"Marquis, pray neither to Hercules nor to Hebert; if you wish to get your
own cart out of the ruts, put your own shoulder to the wheel."

Alain coloured high, unaccustomed to be so bluntly addressed, but he
replied with a kind of dignified meekness: "I shall ever remain grateful
for what you have done, and wish to do for me. But, assuming that you
suppose rightly, the estates of Rochebriant would, in your hands, become
a profitable investment, and more than redeem the mortgage, and the sum
you have paid Louvier on my account, let it pass to you irrespectively of
me. I shall console myself in the knowledge that the old place will be
restored, and those who honoured its old owners prosper in hands so
strong, guided by a heart so generous."

Duplessis was deeply affected by these simple words; they seized him on
the tenderest side of his character--for his heart was generous, and no
one, except his lost wife and his loving child, had ever before
discovered it to be so. Has it ever happened to you, reader, to be
appreciated on the one point of the good or the great that is in you--on
which secretly you value yourself most--but for which nobody, not
admitted into your heart of hearts, has given you credit? If that has
happened to you, judge what Duplessis felt when the fittest
representative of that divine chivalry which, if sometimes deficient in
head, owes all that exalts it to riches of heart, spoke thus to the