ext morning they started,
Labassandre in a most extraordinary costume, dressed, in fact, for
an expedition across the Pampas,--high gaiters, a green velvet vest,
a knapsack, and a knife in his girdle. The poet was at once solemn and
happy: solemn, because he felt that he had accomplished a great duty;
happy, because this departure filled him with joy.

Charlotte embraced Jack tenderly and with tears. "You will take good
care of him, M. Labassandre?"

"As of my best note, madame."

Charlotte sobbed. The boy sought to hide his emotion, for the thought of
working for his mother had given him courage and strength. At the end
of the garden path he turned once more, that he might carry away in his
memory a last picture of the house, and the face of the woman who smiled
through her tears.

"Write often!" cried the mother.

And the poet shouted, in stentorian tones, "Remember, Jack, life is not
a romance!"

Life is not a romance; but was it not one for him? The selfish
egotist! He stood on the threshold of his little home, with one hand on
Charlotte's shoulder, the roses in bloom all about him, and he himself
in a pose pretentious enough for a photograph, and so radiant at having
won the day, that he forgot his hatred, and waved a paternal adieu to
the child he had driven from the shelter of his roof.

CHAPTER XIII.~~INDRET.

The opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, "Is not the scene
beautiful, Jack?"

It was about four o'clock--a July evening; the waves glittered in the
sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the
golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they
were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white
salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the
caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with
grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream,
arriving, perhaps, from the end of the world after a two years' voyage,
and bearing with it something of the poetry and mystery of other lands.
A fresh breeze came from the sea, and made one long for the deep blue of
the ocean.

"And Indret--where is it?" asked Jack.

"There, that island opposite."

Through the silvery mists that enveloped the island, Jack saw dimly
a row of poplar-trees, and some high chimneys from which poured out a
thick black smoke; at the same time he heard loud blows of hammers on
iron, an