etly sent money to their poet, it must
be plain to the reader that the three hundred francs they sent were like
their very blood. The overwhelming news, the disheartening sense that
work as bravely as she might, she made so little, left Eve looking
forward with a certain dread to an event which fills the cup of
happiness to the full. The time was coming very near now, and to herself
she said, "If my dear David has not reached the end of his researches
before my confinement, what will become of us? And who will look after
our poor printing office and the business that is growing up?"

The _Shepherd's Calendar_ ought by rights to have been ready before the
1st of January, but Cerizet was working unaccountably slowly; all the
work of composing fell to him; and Mme. Sechard, knowing so little,
could not find fault, and was fain to content herself with watching the
young Parisian.

Cerizet came from the great Foundling Hospital in Paris. He had been
apprenticed to the MM. Didot, and between the ages of fourteen and
seventeen he was David Sechard's fanatical worshiper. David put him
under one of the cleverest workmen, and took him for his copy-holder,
his page. Cerizet's intelligence naturally interested David; he won
the lad's affection by procuring amusements now and again for him,
and comforts from which he was cut off by poverty. Nature had endowed
Cerizet with an insignificant, rather pretty little countenance, red
hair, and a pair of dull blue eyes; he had come to Angouleme and brought
the manners of the Parisian street-boy with him. He was formidable by
reason of a quick, sarcastic turn and a spiteful disposition. Perhaps
David looked less strictly after him in Angouleme; or, perhaps, as the
lad grew older, his mentor put more trust in him, or in the sobering
influences of a country town; but be that as it may, Cerizet (all
unknown to his sponsor) was going completely to the bad, and the
printer's apprentice was acting the part of a Don Juan among little work
girls. His morality, learned in Paris drinking-saloons, laid down the
law of self-interest as the sole rule of guidance; he knew, moreover,
that next year he would be "drawn for a soldier," to use the popular
expression, saw that he had no prospects, and ran into debt, thinking
that soon he should be in the army, and none of his creditors would run
after him. David still possessed some ascendency over the young fellow,
due not to his position as master, nor yet t