ping.

As soon as the young Count was fully awake, Lisbeth talked to give him
courage, and questioned him to find out how he might make a living.
Wenceslas, after telling his story, added that he owed his position to
his acknowledged talent for the fine arts. He had always had a
preference for sculpture; the necessary time for study had, however,
seemed to him too long for a man without money; and at this moment he
was far too weak to do any hard manual labor or undertake an important
work in sculpture. All this was Greek to Lisbeth Fischer. She replied
to the unhappy man that Paris offered so many openings that any man
with will and courage might find a living there. A man of spirit need
never perish if he had a certain stock of endurance.

"I am but a poor girl myself, a peasant, and I have managed to make
myself independent," said she in conclusion. "If you will work in
earnest, I have saved a little money, and I will lend you, month by
month, enough to live upon; but to live frugally, and not to play
ducks and drakes with or squander in the streets. You can dine in
Paris for twenty-five sous a day, and I will get you your breakfast
with mine every day. I will furnish your rooms and pay for such
teaching as you may think necessary. You shall give me formal
acknowledgment for the money I may lay out for you, and when you are
rich you shall repay me all. But if you do not work, I shall not
regard myself as in any way pledged to you, and I shall leave you to
your fate."

"Ah!" cried the poor fellow, still smarting from the bitterness of his
first struggle with death, "exiles from every land may well stretch
out their hands to France, as the souls in Purgatory do to Paradise.
In what other country is such help to be found, and generous hearts
even in such a garret as this? You will be everything to me, my
beloved benefactress; I am your slave! Be my sweetheart," he added,
with one of the caressing gestures familiar to the Poles, for which
they are unjustly accused of servility.

"Oh, no; I am too jealous, I should make you unhappy; but I will
gladly be a sort of comrade," replied Lisbeth.

"Ah, if only you knew how I longed for some fellow-creature, even a
tyrant, who would have something to say to me when I was struggling in
the vast solitude of Paris!" exclaimed Wenceslas. "I regretted
Siberia, whither I should be sent by the Emperor if I went home.--Be
my Providence!--I will work; I will be a better man than I a