ver he went.

CHAPTER V.

Monsieur Linders' System.

My little lady had given Horace Graham a tolerably correct
impression of her life as they had talked together in the
moonlight at Chaudfontaine. When M. Linders took her home with
him--if that may be called home which consisted of wanderings
from one hotel to another--it was with certain fixed ideas
concerning her, which he began by realizing with the success
that not unfrequently attended his ideas when he set himself
with a will to work them out. His child's love and trust he
had already gained, as she had won suddenly for herself a
place in his heart, and he started with the determination that
these relations between them should never be disturbed. She
should be educated for himself; she should be brought up to
see with his eyes, to adopt his views; she should be taught no
troublesome standard of right and wrong by which to measure
him and find wanting; no cold shadow of doubt and reproach
should ever rise between them and force them asunder; and
above all, he would make her happy--she for one should never
turn on him and say, "See, my life is ruined, and it is you
who have done it!" She should know no life, no aims, no wishes
but his; but that life should be so free from care and sorrow
that for once he would be able to congratulate himself on
having made the happiness, instead of the misery, of some one
whom he loved and who loved him.

These were the ideas that M. Linders entertained concerning
Madelon, expressing them to himself in thoughts and language
half genuine, half sentimental, as was his nature. But his
love for his child was genuine enough; and for the fulfilment
of his purpose he was willing to sacrifice much, devoting
himself to her, and giving up time, comfort, and even money,
for the sake of this one small being whom in all the world he
loved, and who was to be taught to love him. He took her about
with him; she associated with his companions; he familiarized
her with all his proceedings, and she came in consequence to
look upon their mode of life as being as much a matter of
course, and a part of the great system of things, as the child
does who sees her father go out to plough every day, or mount
the pulpit every Sunday to preach his sermon. Of course she
did not understand it all; it was his one object in life that
she should not; and fondly as he loved his little Madelon, he
did not scruple to make her welfare subordinate to his ow