money into his pocket. She fancied that his
silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fete in
which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the
waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.

"You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself."

He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother
all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fete from
which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life
from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who
could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a
family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from
asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing
that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it
was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would
impart the strength to cope with them.

Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a
spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere.
It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets,
going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one
word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole
refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on
his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an
exclamation of despair.

"They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?" and entering
one of those miserable drink-ing-shops, Jack called for a double measure
of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,--

"Do you drink brandy, Jack?"

No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.

How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks' duration after this long
walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals,
who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health,
is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack
seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor's
office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sk