most ardent,
the most enthusiastic of its heroes,--those, in short, who had gone in
the advance. Agathe was never able, however, to make her son see that
he was more duped than persecuted. With blind belief in her idol, she
supposed herself ignorant, and deplored, as Philippe did, the evil times
which had done him such wrong. Up to this time he was, to her mind,
throughout his misfortunes, less faulty than victimized by his noble
nature, his energy, the fall of the Emperor, the duplicity of the
Liberals, and the rancor of the Bourbons against the Bonapartists.
During the week at Havre, a week which was horribly costly, she dared
not ask him to make terms with the royal government and apply to the
minister of war. She had hard work to get him away from Havre, where
living is very expensive, and to bring him back to Paris before her
money gave out. Madame Descoings and Joseph, who were awaiting their
arrival in the courtyard of the coach-office of the Messageries Royales,
were struck with the change in Agathe's face.

"Your mother has aged ten years in two months," whispered the Descoings
to Joseph, as they all embraced, and the two trunks were being handed
down.

"How do you do, mere Descoings?" was the cool greeting the colonel
bestowed on the old woman whom Joseph was in the habit of calling "maman
Descoings."

"I have no money to pay for a hackney-coach," said Agathe, in a sad
voice.

"I have," replied the young painter. "What a splendid color Philippe has
turned!" he cried, looking at his brother.

"Yes, I've browned like a pipe," said Philippe. "But as for you, you're
not a bit changed, little man."

Joseph, who was now twenty-one, and much thought of by the friends who
had stood by him in his days of trial, felt his own strength and was
aware of his talent; he represented the art of painting in a circle of
young men whose lives were devoted to science, letters, politics, and
philosophy. Consequently, he was wounded by his brother's contempt,
which Philippe still further emphasized with a gesture, pulling his ears
as if he were still a child. Agathe noticed the coolness which succeeded
the first glow of tenderness on the part of Joseph and Madame Descoings;
but she hastened to tell them of Philippe's sufferings in exile, and so
lessened it. Madame Descoings, wishing to make a festival of the return
of the prodigal, as she called him under her breath, had prepared one
of her good dinners, to which old Clapar