way?"

"By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We
propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just
now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for
fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police;
and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments
will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and
will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in
obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom
on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no
national opposition!

"Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he
breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he
loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins,
d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie
have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their
charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent
work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character
who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence,
ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help
given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the
poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an
angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and
these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the
cost of her hackney coaches.

"You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still
assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's
is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized
scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know;
continue in it."

"Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend,"
said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes."

"Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the
Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has
disappeared?"

"Alas! yes."

"So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which,
indeed, he is not lacking."

"There are bills of his to be met."

"Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in
advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out
of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nu