ward his ardor.

"Five thousand families assisted!" he kept repeating to himself. "If
they were to cost what I am to spend on Monsieur Bernard, we must have
millions scattered through Paris."

This thought was the last expiring movement of the spirit of the world,
which had slowly and insensibly become extinguished in Godefroid. On
reflection he saw that the united fortunes of Madame de la Chanterie,
Messieurs Alain, Nicolas, Joseph, and that of Judge Popinot, the gifts
obtained through the Abbe de Veze, and the assistance lent by the
firm of Mongenod must produce a large capital; and that this capital,
increased during the last dozen years by grateful returns from those
assisted, must have grown like a snowball, inasmuch as the charitable
stewards of it spent so little on themselves. Little by little he began
to see clearly into this vast work, and his desire to co-operate in it
increased.

He was preparing at nine o'clock to return on foot to the boulevard du
Mont-Parnasse; but Madame de la Chanterie, fearing the solitude of that
neighborhood at a late hour, made him take a cab. When he reached the
house Godefroid heard the sound of an instrument, though the shutters
were so carefully closed that not a ray of light issued through them. As
soon as he reached the landing, Auguste, who was probably on the watch
for him, opened the door of Monsieur Bernard's apartment and said:--

"Mamma would like to see you, and my grandfather offers you a cup of
tea."

When Godefroid entered, the patient seemed to him transfigured by the
pleasure she felt in making music; her face was radiant, her eyes were
sparkling like diamonds.

"I ought to have waited to let you hear the first sounds," she said to
Godefroid, "but I flung myself upon the little organ as a starving man
flings himself on food. You have a soul that comprehends me, and I know
you will forgive."

Vanda made a sign to her son, who placed himself in such a way as to
press with his foot the pedal which filled the bellows; and then the
invalid, whose fingers had for the time recovered all their strength
and agility, raising her eyes to heaven like Saint Cecilia, played the
"Prayer of Moses in Egypt," which her son had bought for her and which
she had learned by heart in a few hours. Godefroid recognized in her
playing the same quality as in Chopin's. The soul was satisfied by
divine sounds of which the dominant note was that of tender melancholy.
Monsieur Bernard h