“Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d’Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. “You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle’s is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it.” “Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother’s friend,” said Victorin. “I will try to come up to all your hopes.” “Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way,” added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, “your father has disappeared?” “Alas! yes.” “So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking.” “There are bills of his to be met.” “Well, you shall have six months’ pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father’s pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----” So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof.