he was prepared to pass the
entrance examination of the Ecole polytechnique.

Sometimes of an evening he went down to the bridge of Tours. There was
a lieutenant there on half-pay, an Imperial naval officer, whose manly
face, medal, and gait had made an impression on the boy's imagination,
and the officer on his side had taken a liking to the lad, whose eyes
sparkled with energy. Louis, hungering for tales of adventure, and eager
for information, used to follow in the lieutenant's wake for the chance
of a chat with him. It so happened that the sailor had a friend and
comrade in the colonel of a regiment of infantry, struck off the rolls
like himself; and young Louis-Gaston had a chance of learning what
life was like in camp or on board a man-of-war. Of course, he plied
the veterans with questions; and when he had made up his mind to the
hardships of their rough callings, he asked his mother's leave to take
country walks by way of amusement. Mme. Willemsens was beyond measure
glad that he should ask; the boy's astonished masters had told her that
he was overworking himself. So Louis went for long walks. He tried to
inure himself to fatigue, climbed the tallest trees with incredible
quickness, learned to swim, watched through the night. He was not like
the same boy; he was a young man already, with a sunburned face, and a
something in his expression that told of deep purpose.

When October came, Mme. Willemsens could only rise at noon. The
sunshine, reflected by the surface of the Loire, and stored up by the
rocks, raised the temperature of the air till it was almost as warm
and soft as the atmosphere of the Bay of Naples, for which reason the
faculty recommend the place of abode. At mid-day she came out to sit
under the shade of green leaves with the two boys, who never wandered
from her now. Lessons had come to an end. Mother and children wished to
live the life of heart and heart together, with no disturbing element,
no outside cares. No tears now, no joyous outcries. The elder boy, lying
in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes like a lover and
kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowers for her, and
brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to put a girlish
kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great tired eyes and
languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint, and smiled upon
her children, so full of life and health--it was a sublime picture,
lacking no melanch