sorrow-stricken father. "Why do you cry, poor old man?" he asked. "You
have not lost your papa and mamma, as I have lost mine, have you? I want
to stay with you and be your little boy, please. She told me to say
that," he added, pointing to Cydalise.--"And I have said it right,
haven't I?" he asked of the same lady.--"I think I shall love you,
because you are like my papa, only older and uglier," the little one
concluded, with angelic candour.

The seigneur of Beaubocage dried his tears with an effort.
Beaubocage--Cotenoir. Ah, me! what empty sounds those two once magic
names seemed to him now that his son's life had been sacrificed to so
paltry an ambition, so sordid a passion, so vile and grovelling a desire!
He took the boy on his knee, and kissed him tenderly. His thoughts
bridged over a chasm of five-and-twenty years as his lips pressed
that fair young brow; and it was his own son--the son whom he had
disowned--whose soft hair was mingling itself now with the grey bristles
on his rugged chin.

"My child," he murmured softly, "the fear is that I shall love thee too
well, and be to thee as much too weakly indulgent as I was wickedly stern
to thy father. Anything is easier to humanity than justice."

This was said to himself rather than to the boy.

"Tell me thy name, little one," he asked presently, after a few moments'
pensive meditation.

"I have two names, monsieur."

"Thou must call me grandfather. And the two names?"