this short dialogue,
here whispered something in his ear, to which he as hastily replied,--

"Not a bit of it. I know him better than that; better than you do.
Come, sir," added he, turning to me, "the Countess tells me that you are
naturally sensitive, quick to feel censure, and prone to brood over it.
Is this the case?"

"I scarcely know if it be," said I. "I have but a slight experience of
it."

"Ay, that's more like the truth," said he, gayly. "The language of blame
is not familiar to him. So, then, from Raper you have learned little.
Now, what has the great financier and arch-swindler Law taught you?"

"Emile, Emile," broke in my mother, "this is not a way to speak to
the boy, nor is it by such lessons he will be trained to gratitude and
affection."

"Even there, then, will my teaching serve him," said he, laughingly.
"From all that I have seen of life, these are but unprofitable
emotions."

I did not venture to look at my mother; but I could hear how her
breathing came fast and thick, and could mark the agitation she was
under.

"Now, Jasper," said he, "sit down here beside me, and let us talk to
each other in all confidence and sincerity. You know enough of your
history to be aware that you are an orphan, that both your parents died
leaving you penniless, and that to this lady, whom till now you have
called your mother, you owe your home."

My heart was full to bursting, and I could only clasp my mother's hand
and kiss it passionately, without being able to utter a word.

"I neither wish to excite your feelings nor to weary you," said he,
calmly; "but it is necessary that I should tell you we are not rich.
The fact, indeed, may have occurred to you already," said he, with
a disdainful gesture of his hand, while his eye ranged over the
poverty-stricken chamber where we sat. "Well," resumed he, "not being
rich, but poor,--so poor that I have known what it is to feel hunger and
thirst and cold, for actual want! Worse again," cried he, with a wild
and savage energy, "have felt the indignity of being scoffed at for my
poverty, and seen the liveried scullions of a great house make jests
upon my threadbare coat and worn hat! It has been my own choosing,
however, all of it!" and as he spoke, he arose, and paced the room with
strides that made the frail chamber tremble beneath the tread.

"Dearest Emile," cried my mother, "let us have no more of this. Remember
that it is so long since we met. Pray keep these