tter is summed up in that sentence. If the
vicissitudes of his present way of life (a very wretched and
slippery one) should bring the poet back to you, use all your
influence to keep him among you; for until his character has
acquired stability, Paris will not be safe for him. He used to
speak of you, you and your husband, as his guardian angels; he has
forgotten you, no doubt; but he will remember you again when
tossed by tempest, with no refuge left to him but his home. Keep
your heart for him, madame; he will need it.

"Permit me, madame, to convey to you the expression of the sincere
respect of a man to whom your rare qualities are known, a man who
honors your mother's fears so much, that he desires to style
himself your devoted servant,

"D'ARTHEZ."

Two days after the letter came, Eve was obliged to find a wet-nurse;
her milk had dried up. She had made a god of her brother; now, in her
eyes, he was depraved through the exercise of his noblest faculties;
he was wallowing in the mire. She, noble creature that she was, was
incapable of swerving from honesty and scrupulous delicacy, from all
the pious traditions of the hearth, which still burns so clearly and
sheds its light abroad in quiet country homes. Then David had been
right in his forecasts! The leaden hues of grief overspread Eve's
white brow. She told her husband her secret in one of the pellucid
talks in which married lovers tell everything to each other. The tones
of David's voice brought comfort. Though the tears stood in his eyes
when he knew that grief had dried his wife's fair breast, and knew
Eve's despair that she could not fulfil a mother's duties, he held out
reassuring hopes.

"Your brother's imagination has let him astray, you see, child. It is
so natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and
hurry as eagerly after festivals as he does. It is a bird that loves
glitter and luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him
if man condemns him for it."

"But he is draining our lives!" exclaimed poor Eve.

"He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved
us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings," said the good
David. He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going
beyond the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back.
"Fifty years ago, or thereabouts, Mercier said in his _Table