“After all, you are right, mother; it will be better for me to let the gentleman sleep, who has helped me to cure you. I will go to-morrow morning, when his negro is up.--But the water is still boiling; give me what I need for your tea.” The invalid chose one of the herbs. Georget soon made the tea and carried his mother a cup smoking hot and well sweetened; and when she had drunk it, he filled the cup again and placed it on the table by the bed. “If you are thirsty again in the night,” he said, “you must drink this; it will be all ready; now try to go to sleep.” “Yes, my dear, but it seems to me that I feel better already.” “Well! mother; it is always like that; when a person has all that he needs to get well, then the disease must go.” “Oh! not always, my boy, for in that case rich people would never be sick; but the thing that relieves one is contentment, happiness. It requires so little to make poor people happy! and what has happened to us this evening is real good fortune.” “Oh, yes! it is a kind of good fortune that the rich do not know, but that they can confer on others; and that must be a great pleasure too.--Good-night, mother; if you need anything, call me.” VII A DIFFICULT ERRAND The next day, before six o’clock, Georget was up and dressed; he went first to inquire concerning his mother’s health; the invalid had slept, and felt better, although she was still too weak to rise. She smiled as she said: “Up already, my dear?” “I must earn a lot of money to-day, mother, in order to bring you all that you need.” “But I need nothing, as I have the material for making herb tea.” “Oh! nobody knows! if you get better, perhaps a little beef soup won’t be a bad thing for you. When a fellow is out on the boulevard early, he is more apt to find work. There are maids who have bundles to send, people who have to go into the country and are looking for a cab----” “Poor Georget! what a miserable trade yours is! Knowing how to write and figure as you do, you ought to have found a place in some office, or a clerkship in some shop.” “Oh, yes! and wait a year or two before earning any kind of a salary! Don’t think about that any more, mother; I am very happy as I am! A clerk! shut up all day in an office! oh! how sick I should get of that! then I should never see her!” “Who is it that you’d never see, my child?” Georget blushed, but made haste to reply: “I mean that I shouldn’t see you during the day, whenever I wanted to. By the way, mother, I must go to see the gentleman on the third floor, the gentleman who is so kind, although he doesn’t show it. I am going to return his twenty francs.” “Isn’t it a little too early? He isn’t up yet, probably.” “Oh! I am very sure that he gets up early; he isn’t one of the kind to coddle himself. Anyway, I’ll ask his valet, that mulatto who’s such a strange creature, they say.” “Go, my dear, and thank the gentleman from me, until I can do it myself.”