eve, who could no
longer keep silence.

"Never!" replied Michael.

"But, wretched man!" cried she, "he sold it only for our sakes!"

The joiner looked at his wife and son with astonishment. It was
necessary to come to an explanation. The latter related how he had
entered into a negotiation with Master Benoit, who had positively
refused to sell his business unless one half of the two thousand francs
were first paid down. It was in the hopes of obtaining this sum that
he had gone to work with the contractor at Versailles; he had had an
opportunity of trying his invention, and of finding a purchaser. Thanks
to the money he received for it, he had just concluded the bargain with
Benoit, and had brought his father the key of the new work-yard.

This explanation was given by the young workman with so much modesty
and simplicity that I was quite affected by it. Genevieve cried; Michael
pressed his son to his heart, and in a long embrace he seemed to ask his
pardon for having unjustly accused him.

All was now explained with honor to Robert. The conduct which his
parents had ascribed to indifference really sprang from affection; he
had neither obeyed the voice of ambition nor of avarice, nor even the
nobler inspiration of inventive genius: his whole motive and single aim
had been the happiness of Genevieve and Michael. The day for proving his
gratitude had come, and he had returned them sacrifice for sacrifice!

After the explanations and exclamations of joy were over, all three were
about to leave me; but, the cloth being laid, I added three more places,
and kept them to breakfast.

The meal was prolonged: the fare was only tolerable; but the
over-flowings of affection made it delicious. Never had I better
understood the unspeakable charm of family love. What calm enjoyment in
that happiness which is always shared with others; in that community
of interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of
existences which forms one single being of so many! What is man without
those home affections, which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in
the earth, and permit him to imbibe all the juices of life? Energy,
happiness--do not all these come from them? Without family life where
would man learn to love, to associate, to deny himself? A community in
little, is it not this which teaches us how to live in the great one?
Such is the holiness of home, that, to express our relation with God, we
have been obliged to