It was true that the worthy pastor had no other amusement whatsoever than repeated perusals of Homer and Tacitus, which he had managed to save from the wreck of his scanty chattels. They constituted his whole library. Leading a life completely retired, when the weather precluded him from taking a solitary ramble, he passed his time in reading, praying, or chatting with his sister, whose voice was almost the only one by which he had been accosted during the past twelve months; consequently, although his affection for Madeleine had been always very great, it had become so intense as to make him regard another separation from her as the most deplorable of all his misfortunes. It was therefore in a miserable state of mind that he awaited Madeleine's return, each time that she left home in a renewed hope of procuring him pupils. For a considerable time he had refrained from asking her the question too often followed by the reply of disappointment. It was enough for her to give him a silent embrace, and that after she had thrown her shawl upon the bed, she betook herself at once to her work, for him to form the determination of leaving; and the sale of her watch, to which she attached peculiar value, confirmed his resolution. He had decided on the following week as the time for a separation too afflicting, when one morning Madeleine returned, her countenance indicating that her mind was engrossed by some recent and unusual subject. Michel Perrin, absorbed in his reflections, did not at first observe her serious features. She was seated and working near the window, whilst the pastor, with an open book lying on his knees, was racking his mind as to how he could obtain the means of sustaining life when he would quit his sole remaining asylum. "What a misfortune that Paris is so far off," said Madeleine several times, without perceiving perhaps that she was speaking aloud. At the fourth or fifth repetition of this expression, Michel raised his head--"Why so, my dear sister?" said he; "wherefore do you wish Paris to be nearer?" "Ah! wherefore? It would take too much of your time to listen to me, my dear brother, and you are reading your breviary, I believe." "Tell me fully the reasons for your wish," replied the pastor, laying his book upon the table. "It is because I have chanced to hear a matter so astonishing, so surprising. It must be admitted that some people are extremely lucky." "We cannot be considered so," said Michel, as he breathed a heavy sigh. "No; but your old class-fellow, Eugene Camus. Are you aware that he went to Paris in quest of employment? Well, he has come back for a few days, after having obtained a situation of two thousand francs a-year in the consolidated taxes." "A place of two thousand francs!" exclaimed the good pastor. "You are right in saying that some are very lucky, Madeleine, for I would adduce this poor Eugene Camus as the most thorough blockhead and dunce that ever came from the college of Juilly."