“Yes, yes, she was quite right that time; but I wanted to love everybody who loved you--everybody without exception--and I cannot do it, because it would never be possible for me to love Mademoiselle Prefere.” “Listen, Jeanne,” I answered, very seriously, “Mademoiselle Prefere has become good to you; try now to be good to her.” She answered sharply, “It is very easy for Mademoiselle Prefere to be good to me, and it would be very difficult indeed for me to be good to her.” I then said, in a still more serious tone: “My child, the authority of a teacher is sacred. You must consider your schoolmistress as occupying the place to you of the mother whom you lost.” I had scarcely uttered this solemn stupidity when I bitterly regretted it. The child turned pale, and the tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Monsieur!” she cried, “how could you say such a thing--YOU? You never knew mamma!” Ay, just Heaven! I did know her mamma. And how indeed could I have been foolish enough to have said what I did? She repeated, as if to herself: “Mamma! my dear mamma! my poor mamma!” A lucky chance prevented me from playing the fool any further. I do not know how it happened at that moment I looked as if I was going to cry. At my age one does not cry. It must have been a bad cough which brought the tears into my eyes. But, anyhow, appearances were in my favour. Jeanne was deceived by them. Oh! what a pure and radiant smile suddenly shone out under her beautiful wet eyelashes--like sunshine among branches after a summer shower! We took each other by the hand and sat a long while without saying a word--absolutely happy. Those celestial harmonies which I once thought I heard thrilling through my soul while I knelt before that tomb to which a saintly woman had guided me, suddenly awoke again in my heart, slow-swelling through the blissful moments with infinite softness. Doubtless the child whose hand pressed my own also heard them; and then, elevated by their enchantment above the material world, the poor old man and the artless young girl both knew that a tender ghostly Presence was making sweetness all about them. “My child,” I said at last, “I am very old, and many secrets of life, which you will only learn little by little, have been revealed to me. Believe me, the future is shaped out of the past. Whatever you can do to live contentedly here, without impatience and without fretting, will help you live some future day in peace and joy in your own home. Be gentle, and learn how to suffer. When one suffers patiently one suffers less. If you should be badly treated, Madame de Gabry and I would both consider ourselves badly treated in your person.”... “Is your health very good indeed, dear Monsieur?”