She adjusted her life by her boy in every respect. One word from Ossi sufficed, where her mother's and her brother's entreaties had failed, to produce a change in her hard, impatient bearing towards her invalid husband. It was long before she perceived how her conduct in this respect wounded Ossi's feelings; she sometimes wondered what depressed the boy. It made her anxious, and one day she asked him about it. Taking his face tenderly between both her hands she said, "How sad your eyes are, Ossi, does anything trouble you?" For a moment he hesitated, and then he spoke out bravely. "Mother, dear, you are so very kind to every one else; be a little kind to papa!" She started, turned pale, and left the room without a word; he looked after her anxiously. Had he alienated her affection again? * * * No! that which all the arguments and representations of her mother and brother had failed to accomplish a couple of words from boyish lips had achieved. From that hour she testified towards her invalid husband the unvarying respect, the careful regard of a dutiful daughter, and although his various, and increasing infirmities,--he lost his hearing, and very nearly his eyesight,--becoming at last a complete paralytic,--made her tendance upon him most distressing, she was never again betrayed into uttering an impatient word. Hers was a hard task--especially at the beginning--a very hard task! But what of that? Ossi was pleased with her, and that was reward enough! She had learned to read his eyes; for love of him she altered everything in herself that could displease him, although he himself could not have explained why; she purified and strengthened her character day by day, and really became the mother that he dreamed her. The old Count died; Georges Lodrin had disappeared. An American newspaper announced his death, and as the announcement was not contradicted it was held to be true. Georges was the last heir; at his death the property would have escheated to the government; thus the Countess need no longer be tormented by the thought that she was depriving another of his rights. * * * Days of cloudless delight ensued; Ossi grew to manhood, left her protecting arms, and launched forth upon the broad, perilous stream of life, while she, gazing after him anxiously, was forced to stay upon the shore. The time was past when tenderly, delicately, and yet with a certain shyness of the son already a head taller than herself, she could ask to know all of his life, could extort from him his small confessions. She had to leave him to himself, with, at times, a secret tremor. Only secret, however; she would not interfere with his freedom of action. Praise of him greeted her on all sides; she was satisfied with her work.