that I may not live at the cost of _any one_. If you only knew the
happiness I had in making that restitution! I found the Bourgneufs,
after a good deal of trouble, living miserably and in need of
everything. The old father was a lottery agent; the two daughters kept
his books and took care of the house; the mother was always ill. The
daughters are charming girls, but they have been cruelly taught that
the world thinks little of beauty without money. What a scene it was!
I entered their house the accomplice in a crime; I left it an honest
man, who had purged his father's memory. Uncle, I don't judge him;
there is such excitement, such passion in a lawsuit that even an
honorable man may be led astray by them. Lawyers can make the most
unjust claims legal; laws have convenient syllogisms to quiet
consciences. My visit was a drama. To _be_ Providence itself; actually
to fulfil that futile wish, 'If heaven were to send us twenty thousand
francs a year,'--that silly wish we all make, laughing; to bring
opulence to a family sitting by the light of one miserable lamp over a
poor turf fire!--no, words cannot describe it. My extreme justice
seemed to them unjust. Well! if there is a Paradise my father is happy
in it now. As for me, I am loved as no man was ever loved yet. Madame
Firmiani gives me more than happiness; she has inspired me with a
delicacy of feeling I think I lacked. So I call her _my dear
conscience_,--a love-word which expresses certain secret harmonies
within our hearts. I find honesty profitable; I shall get rich in time
by myself. I've an industrial scheme in my head, and if it succeeds I
shall earn millions."

"Ah! my boy, you have your mother's soul," said the old man, his eyes
filling at the thought of his sister.

Just then, in spite of the distance between Octave's garret and the