"I swear to you I never think of it, and it is ungenerous of you to assume I ever think of it. Let us get away from these subjects, which are even more gloomy than St. Prisca's Tower. Life is too short, and the destroying influences of time too great, for such criminal amusements as you are giving way to, Dominique. As sure as you go back to that hideous tower you will fall into a melancholy. My dear old friend, I can't afford to have you ill----" "My dear old friend, you must afford to have me die." "Upon my word, Dominique, you are intolerable. I will have no more of your nonsense. When a man is in such infamous humour as you are now, there is nothing so good for him as the sight of youth and beauty." Eugene arose, opened the door, and called, "Nellie, bring the boy. Here is Dominique in the blues." In a minute in came the young mother, carrying the boy in her arms. "Dominique in the blues!" she cried, laughing and shaking her rich hair about her shoulders. "Do you hear that?" she said to her child. "Uncle Dominique in a bad temper, Mark. What do you think of that?" she said, as she handed the blue-eyed, curly-haired, sturdy child to the Frenchman. "It is a bad example for a godfather to give his godson. What! In the blues, Dominique! Must I go back and tidy my hair? Eugene, how could you be so inconsiderate? You forget that when a mother is engaged in minding a great big child like Mark, she can't be as tidy as she would wish to be." The boy went freely to Lavirotte, and put his arms round him and clung to him, and called him "Dom," and told him his mother was very naughty since she would not give him sweeties. "Eugene," said Lavirotte, suddenly, "I once knew a man who had a child about the age of this boy in my arms, and he was playing with the child in a perfectly friendly way, as I am now playing with your boy, and owing, mind you, to mere awkwardness, he let the child's back--just here, the small of his back--somewhat rudely touch the edge of a table, and the child lost the use of his lower limbs, and in time, a hunch appeared upon his back. Amiable as you are, Eugene, I wonder what you would say to me if, by accident, I hurt your boy so?" "Dominique," cried the mother, hastily snatching her child from his arms, "what do you mean? There is something queer about you. Your eyes are too quiet for your words." Lavirotte laughed. "My eyes are too quiet for my words," he said "There is a good deal in that, and my mind may be too quiet for my eyes or--the other way." Again he laughed. "I cannot make you out to-day," said Eugene. "Nor can I," said Mrs. O'Donnell. "Mark, what is the matter with godfather?" The child had but one thought. His godfather was ill. He stretched out his hands to go to him. Lavirotte shook his head sadly, and said: "You are safer where you are."