yste in other respects resembled his
mother; he had her beautiful golden hair, her lovable mouth, the same
curving fingers, the same soft, delicate, and purely white skin. Though
slightly resembling a girl disguised as a man, his physical strength was
Herculean. His muscles had the suppleness and vigor of steel springs,
and the singularity of his black eyes and fair complexion was by no
means without charm. His beard had not yet sprouted; this delay, it is
said, is a promise of longevity. The chevalier was dressed in a short
coat of black velvet like that of his mother's gown, trimmed with silver
buttons, a blue foulard necktie, trousers of gray jean, and a becoming
pair of gaiters. His white brow bore the signs of great fatigue, caused,
to an observer's eye, by the weight of painful thoughts; but his mother,
incapable of supposing that troubles could wring his heart, attributed
his evident weariness to passing excitement. Calyste was as handsome as
a Greek god, and handsome without conceit; in the first place, he had
his mother's beauty constantly before him, and next, he cared very
little for personal advantages which he found useless.

"Those beautiful pure cheeks," thought his mother, "where the rich young
blood is flowing, belong to another woman! she is the mistress of that
innocent brow! Ah! passion will lead to many evils; it will tarnish the
look of those eyes, moist as the eyes of an infant!"

This bitter thought wrung Fanny's heart and destroyed her pleasure.

It may seem strange to those who calculate expenses that in a family of
six persons compelled to live on three thousand francs a year the son
should have a coat and the mother a gown of velvet; but Fanny O'Brien
had aunts and rich relations in London who recalled themselves to her
remembrance by many presents. Several of her sisters, married to great
wealth, took enough interest in Calyste to wish to find him an heiress,
knowing that he, like Fanny their exiled favorite, was noble and
handsome.

"You stayed at Les Touches longer than you did last night, my dear one,"
said the mother at last, in an agitated tone.

"Yes, dear mother," he answered, offering no explanation.

The curtness of this answer brought clouds to his mother's brow, and she
resolved to postpone the explanation till the morrow. When mothers admit
the anxieties which were now torturing the baroness, they tremble before
their sons; they feel instinctively the effect of the great ema