“But why didn’t you tell me all this? My dear nephew, you might have known that I love you enough to pay all your good debts, the debts of a gentleman. I’ll play the traditional uncle now, and revenge myself!” “Ah! uncle, I know your vengeance! but let me get rich by my own industry. If you want to do me a real service, make me an allowance of two or three thousand francs a year, till I see my way to an enterprise for which I shall want capital. At this moment I am so happy that all I desire is just the means of living. I give lessons so that I may not live at the cost of _any one_. If you only knew the happiness I had in making that restitution! I found the Bourgneufs, after a good deal of trouble, living miserably and in need of everything. The old father was a lottery agent; the two daughters kept his books and took care of the house; the mother was always ill. The daughters are charming girls, but they have been cruelly taught that the world thinks little of beauty without money. What a scene it was! I entered their house the accomplice in a crime; I left it an honest man, who had purged his father’s memory. Uncle, I don’t judge him; there is such excitement, such passion in a lawsuit that even an honorable man may be led astray by them. Lawyers can make the most unjust claims legal; laws have convenient syllogisms to quiet consciences. My visit was a drama. To _be_ Providence itself; actually to fulfil that futile wish, ‘If heaven were to send us twenty thousand francs a year,’--that silly wish we all make, laughing; to bring opulence to a family sitting by the light of one miserable lamp over a poor turf fire!--no, words cannot describe it. My extreme justice seemed to them unjust. Well! if there is a Paradise my father is happy in it now. As for me, I am loved as no man was ever loved yet. Madame Firmiani gives me more than happiness; she has inspired me with a delicacy of feeling I think I lacked. So I call her _my dear conscience_,--a love-word which expresses certain secret harmonies within our hearts. I find honesty profitable; I shall get rich in time by myself. I’ve an industrial scheme in my head, and if it succeeds I shall earn millions.” “Ah! my boy, you have your mother’s soul,” said the old man, his eyes filling at the thought of his sister. Just then, in spite of the distance between Octave’s garret and the street, the young man heard the sound of a carriage. “There she is!” he cried; “I know her horses by the way they are pulled up.” A few moments more, and Madame Firmiani entered the room.