man who seemed to him as odd as
he was extraordinary. Nothing about him indicated a physician, not even
the study, in which the most notable object was the iron safe, made by
Huret or Fichet.

Godefroid had just time to get to the passage Vivienne before the shops
closed for the day, and there he bought a superb accordion, which he
ordered sent at once to Monsieur Bernard, giving the address.

XVI. A LESSON IN CHARITY

From the doctor's house Godefroid made his way to the rue Chanoinesse,
passing along the quai des Augustins, where he hoped to find one of the
shops of the commission-publishers open. He was fortunate enough to do
so, and had a long talk with a young clerk on books of jurisprudence.

When he reached the rue Chanoinesse, he found Madame de la Chanterie and
her friends just returning from high mass; in reply to the look she gave
him Godefroid made her a significant sign with his head.

"Isn't our dear father Alain here to-day?" he said.

"No," she replied, "not this Sunday; you will not see him till a week
from to-day--unless you go where he gave you rendezvous."

"Madame," said Godefroid in a low voice, "you know he doesn't intimidate
me as these gentlemen do; I wanted to make my report to him--"

"And I?"

"Oh you! I can tell you all; and I have a great deal to tell. For
my first essay I have found a most extraordinary misfortune; a cruel
mingling of pauperism and the need for luxuries; also scenes of a
sublimity which surpasses all the inventions of our great novelists."

"Nature, especially moral nature, is always greater than art, just
as God is greater than his creatures. But come," said madame de la
Chanterie, "tell me the particulars of your first trip into worlds
unknown to you."

Monsieur Nicolas and Monsieur Joseph (for the Abbe de Veze had remained
a few moments in Notre-Dame) left Madame de la Chanterie alone with
Godefroid, who, being still under the influence of the emotions he had
gone through the night before, related even the smallest details of his
story with the force and ardor and action of a first experience of such
a spectacle and its attendant persons and things. His narrative had
a great success; for the calm and gentle Madame de la Chanterie wept,
accustomed as she was to sound the depths of sorrows.

"You did quite right to send the accordion," she said.

"I would like to do a great deal more," said Godefroid; "inasmuch as
this family is the first that has sho