on finding yourself back in the same box from which you emerged when you discovered your old comrade. “ETIENNE L.” “Poor fellows! They have been gambling for me,” said Lucien; he was quite touched by the letter. A waft of the breeze from an unhealthy country, from the land where one has suffered most, may seem to bring the odors of Paradise; and in a dull life there is an indefinable sweetness in memories of past pain. Eve was struck dumb with amazement when her brother came down in his new clothes. She did not recognize him. “Now I can walk out in Beaulieu,” he cried; “they shall not say it of me that I came back in rags. Look, here is a watch which I shall return to you, for it is mine; and, like its owner, it is erratic in its ways.” “What a child he is!” exclaimed Eve. “It is impossible to bear you any grudge.” “Then do you imagine, my dear girl, that I sent for all this with the silly idea of shining in Angoulême? I don’t care _that_ for Angoulême” (twirling his cane with the engraved gold knob). “I intend to repair the wrong I have done, and this is my battle array.” Lucien’s success in this kind was his one real triumph; but the triumph, be it said, was immense. If admiration freezes some people’s tongues, envy loosens at least as many more, and if women lost their heads over Lucien, men slandered him. He might have cried, in the words of the songwriter, “I thank thee, my coat!” He left two cards at the prefecture, and another upon Petit-Claud. The next day, the day of the banquet, the following paragraph appeared under the heading “Angoulême” in the Paris newspapers:-- “ANGOULEME. “The return of the author of _The Archer of Charles IX._ has been the signal for an ovation which does equal honor to the town and to M. Lucien de Rubempré, the young poet who has made so brilliant a beginning; the writer of the one French historical novel not written in the style of Scott, and of a preface which may be called a literary event. The town hastened to offer him a patriotic banquet on his return. The name of the recently-appointed prefect is associated with the public demonstration in honor of the author of the _Marguerites_, whose talent received such warm encouragement from Mme. du Châtelet at the outset of his career.”