"Oh! _Mon Dieu_! who is your mother?" "She is--I was told not to tell you right away! My mother used to be the Comtesse de ----, at Havana; she didn't love me, and she used often to say to me: 'You are not my son, I am not obliged to love you.'--But my papa loved me, and he often said to me: 'You are all mine, you haven't any mother.'--Then he died a year and a half ago, and the countess said: 'You belong to me and you are going to stay with me.'--That was because my father left her some money on condition that I should always be known as their son. But she didn't love me any better, and I was very unhappy with her, when a gentleman from the United States, whose name is Monsieur Richard Palmer, came all of a sudden and asked for me. The countess said: 'No, I am not willing.'--Then Monsieur Palmer said to me: 'Do you want me to take you to your real mother, who thinks you are dead, and who will be very happy to see you again?'--I said: 'Yes, indeed I do!' Then Monsieur Palmer came at night in a boat, because we lived on the sea-shore, and I got up very softly, very softly, and we sailed together to a big ship, and then we crossed the great ocean, and here we are." "Here you are!" said Thérèse, who held the child close to her heart, and, trembling with frantic joy, enveloped him in a single, fervent kiss while he was speaking; "where is Palmer?" "I don't know," said the child. "He brought me to the door, and told me to ring; then I didn't see him again." "Let us look for him," said Thérèse, rising; "he cannot be far away!" She ran out with the child, and they found Palmer, who was waiting at a little distance, to make sure that the boy was recognized by his mother. "Richard! Richard!" cried Thérèse, throwing herself at his feet in the middle of the still deserted street, as she would have done if it had been full of people. "To me you are _God_!" She could say no more; suffocated by tears of joy, she well-nigh went mad. Palmer led her beneath the trees on the Champs-Elysées, and made her sit down. It was at least an hour before she became calm and recovered her wits, and could manage to caress her son without danger of smothering him. "Now," said Palmer, "I have paid my debt. You gave me days of happiness and hope, and I did not choose to remain under obligations to you. I give you a whole life-time of affection and consolation, for this child is an angel, and it costs me dear to part from him. I have deprived him of one inheritance, and I owe him one in exchange. You have no right to object; my measures are taken, and all his interests are properly cared for. He has a purse in his pocket which assures his present and his future. Adieu, Thérèse! Be sure that I am your friend in life and in death."