“I don’t care, monsieur; beat me, discharge me, send me to the stable, make me sleep with the horses; do whatever you choose, but don’t make this child cry; for if you do, why--I----” Jasmin paused; he could say no more, because he too was weeping. Monsieur de Grandvilain, when he saw his faithful servant cover his eyes with his handkerchief, held out his hand instead of scolding him, and said: “Come! come! don’t lose your head. I was wrong, yes, I was wrong, since I have made this poor child unhappy. After all, my company is not very lively; the gout often makes me cross. What would he do in this great house, poor boy? He is too young to be made to study. And then he no longer has any mother, so we must leave him with his nurse as long as possible. Besides, the air in Paris is not so good as that which he breathes in the village. So take back your foster-child, nurse; as he loves you so dearly, it must be that you make him happy. Come and kiss me, Chérubin, and don’t cry any more; you are going back to your good friends; they do not love you any more than we do, but you love them more. I will try to be patient, and perhaps my turn will come some day.” “Bravo! bravo!” cried Jasmin, while his master embraced his son. “Ah! that is what I call talking; I recognize you now, monsieur. Why, certainly your Chérubin will love you, he will adore you,--but later; you can’t expect that all at once; let him grow a little, and if he doesn’t love you then, why I shall have a word to say to him.” So the nurse took Chérubin back to the village. Nicole was well pleased to keep a child who was a fortune to her; but she promised the old marquis to bring his son to him the next week, for the old man seemed more depressed than usual at parting. They say that there are presentiments, secret warnings, which enable us to divine that some disaster threatens us; that our heart beats more violently when we part from a dear one whom we are destined never to see again. Why should we not believe in presentiments? The ancients believed in omens; men of sense are sometimes very superstitious; it is infinitely better to believe in many things than to believe in nothing; and strong minds are not always great minds. Had the Marquis de Grandvilain a presentiment, that he was so loath to allow his son to go? That is something that we cannot tell; but it is a fact that he was destined never to see him again. Three days after the scene which we have described, an attack of gout carried the old nobleman off in a few hours; he had only time to whisper to Jasmin the name of his notary, and to breathe that of his son. The grief of the marquis’s valet was more intense, more touching, more sincere, than that of a multitude of friends and relations would have been. When our servants love us, they love us dearly, for they know our faults as well as our good qualities, and they forgive us the former in favor of the latter, which our friends and acquaintances never do.