giant, the terror of every poacher for miles, cast from left to right a glance that night-watches among thickets and trees had rendered so keen that it could not remain fixed for a moment.

To hear his mother addressed by that name of d'Argenton vexed our friend Jack a little. But as he had no very definite notions concerning the dignity or the duties of life, with childish levity, he was speedily diverted by other thoughts, especially by the promise of a squirrel-hunt which the keeper repeated before he left, calling his two dogs, who lay panting under the table, and putting on over his light curls the forester's-cap worn by keepers in the State service.

After the couple had left, the sound of a carriage was heard, rolling slowly and laboriously along the steep and stony road.

"Why! that must be Monsieur Rivals. recognize the slow trot of his horse. Is that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Madame d'Argenton."

I

It was the Étiolles doctor returning from his rounds, and he had come to inquire after his little patient of the morning.

"There! I told you it was only fatigue. Goodevening, my boy."

Jack looked at the big, red, blotchy face, the short, thick-set, bent figure, clad in a long coat that just grazed his heels, the rough, white, bushy hair, and that rolling gait which was the result of twenty years spent as a naval surgeon.

How kindly, how true-hearted he seemed!

Ah, what good people these were, how happy he felt among such open rustic folk, far away from that horrible mulatto and the Gymnase Moronval.

After the doctor had gone, they fastened the big bolts on the door. Silence and darkness enfolded the house, and mother and child retired to their room for the night.

There, while Jack slept, she wrote her d'Argenton a long letter, announcing her son's arrival, and endeavoring to excite his compassion for the uncertain lot of the little creature whose peaceful, regular breathing she heard behind the curtains near her.

She did not feel reassured upon this subject until two days later, when she received from Auvergne the poet's answer.

Though full of remonstrances and allusions to the weakness of the mother, the undisciplined nature of the child, the letter was not as terrible as might have been expected. On the whole, d'Argenton had been considering the enormous expense involved in educating Jack at the Moronvals, and while disapproving of the boy's running away, he thought it not a bad thing, on the whole, as the school had gone completely to the dogs. (Why! how could it be otherwise, since he was no longer there?) As concerned the child's future, he would take charge of it, and on his return, which would be a week later, he would decide what was to be done.

Never again, either in childhood or manhood, did Jack enjoy a week of such perfect days as that

week, so beautiful, so happy, so full. His mother all to himself, the woods, the yard, the goat were his! He could climb up the stairs ten times a day after his Ida, go wherever she went, laugh when she laughed, without knowing why, — in short his happiness was complete, a happiness made up of innumerable insignificant but joyous events impossible to relate.

Then came another letter, and his mother said: "He will be here to-morrow."

Although d'Argenton had said he was willing to receive the child, to be kind and indulgent towards him, the mother felt uneasy and desired to prepare for the meeting. Consequently she did not allow Jack to go with her in the carriage, that was to bring the poet from the station at Évry. Greatly embarrassed, she read him a lecture which was quite painful for both; she spoke as if both had been accomplices in some unpardonable crime. "You are to remain at the end of the garden. You understand? You must not rush forward to meet him. You will wait until I call you."

Oh, how excited Jack felt! He spent that hour of waiting, walking back and forth in the orchard, watching the stony little path until he heard the first grinding sound of the wheels.

Then he fled and hid behind the currant-bushes. He heard them enter the house,-His voice, severe and unsympathetic, his mother's softer even than usual, answering, "Yes, my love," "No, my love."

At last, through the foliage, he saw a window open in the turret:

"Jack, be quick! You may come up."

His little heart beat very fast as he went up the stairs, and he was almost choking from fear. He felt upon entering that he was ill prepared for so serious an interview, and was overawed at sight of that pallid face against the sombre background of the chair, and disturbed by the embarrassment of his mother, who dared not even stretch out her hand to the frightened child.

Then he stammered "Good morning," and waited. The lecture was brief, affectionate almost, for his attitude, that of a culprit, was far from displeasing to the poet, who, moreover, was delighted at the trick played upon his " dear director."

"Jack," he said, in conclusion, "man must be serious, must work. Life is not a romance. I ask nothing better than to be convinced that you are really repentant. Listen, then, to what I have to propose. From the time which I devote to my terrible artistic struggles I will give daily an hour or two to your education and instruction. If you will work, I undertake to make of you, undisciplined and frivolous child though you are, a man like myself, solidly equipped for the battle of life."

"You hear, Jack," said the mother, uneasy at the child's silence, "you understand, do you not, the great sacrifice our friend is about to make for your sake?

"Yes, mamma," murmured Jack.

Wait, Charlotte," d'Argenton replied, "I must first know whether my proposition pleases him. There is no compulsion, you understand.”

"Well, Jack?'

Jack, much perplexed at hearing his mother addressed as Charlotte, scarcely knew how to reply, and was so long in seeking words eloquent and touching enough to reward such generosity, that his gratitude subsided into complete silence. On seeing this, his mother pushed him into the arms of the poet, who gave him a genuine stagekiss, making up in sound for what it lacked in warmth; at the same time the poet did not entirely conceal the involuntary repugnance he felt.

"Oh, my dear, how noble, how good you are!” murmured the poor woman, while the child, dismissed with a gesture, ran downstairs as fast as he could to hide his emotion.

In fact, Jack's arrival was somewhat of a relief to the poet; after the first pleasure of getting settled had passed, he soon wearied of his tête-à-tête with Ida, whom he now called Charlotte, in memory of Goethe's heroine, and because he desired to obliterate every reminder of the former Ida de Barancy. But when he was with her, he still felt himself alone, so completely had his masterful personality impressed itself upon the narrow mind and negative nature of this unfortunate

creature.

She repeated his words, absorbed his ideas, diluting his paradoxes with interminable twaddle, so that the two were really one, and this oneness which under certain conditions may seem the ideal of happiness, had become a source of actual torment to d'Argenton, who was too combative,