me thus to the hatred of Sarah Brandon and her people. And yet--ah! I
have suffered terribly. I have struggled hard before I could make up my
mind to leave your house,--the house where my mother had died, where I
had been so happy, and so tenderly beloved as a child by both of you.
Ah, if you but knew!

"And yet it was so little I asked of you!--barely enough to bury my
undeserved disgrace in a convent.

"Yes, undeserved, father; for I tell you at this hour, when no one
utters a falsehood, if my reputation was lost, my honor was not lost."


Big tears rolled down the cheeks of the old man; and he said in a
half-stifled voice,--

"Poor, poor child! And to think that for a whole year I have lived under
the same roof with her, without knowing it. But I am here. I am still in
time. Oh, what a friend _chance_ can be when it chooses!"

Most assuredly not one of the inmates of the house would have recognized
Papa Ravinet at this moment; he was literally transfigured. He was no
longer the cunning dealer in second-hand articles, the old scamp with
the sharp, vulgar face, so well known at all public sales, where he sat
in the front rank, watching for good bargains, and keeping cool when all
around him were in a state of fervent excitement.

The two letters he had just read had opened anew in his heart more than
one badly-healed and badly-scarred wound. He was suffering intensely;
and his pain, his wrath, and his hope of vengeance long delayed, gave