lf courage."

Enguerrand, who, when he had a hard lesson to learn, always did the same
thing, appeared to understand her.

"You are going to do some thing you don't like."

"Yes, but I have to do it, because you see it is my duty."

"Do grown people have duties?"

"Even more than children."

"But it isn't your duty to write a copy--your writing is so pretty. Oh!
that's what I hate most. And you always say it is my duty to write my
copy. I'll go and do it while you do your duty. So that will seem as if
we were both together doing something we don't like--won't it, mamma?"

She kissed him again, even more passionately.

"We shall be always together, we two, my love!"

This word love struck the little ear of Enguerrand as having a new
accent, a new meaning, and, boy-like, he tried to turn this excess of
tenderness to advantage.

"Since you love me so much, will you take me to see the puppet-show?"

"Anywhere you like--when I come back. Goodby."

CHAPTER XX. A CHIVALROUS SOUL

Madame D'Argy sat knitting by the window in Fred's chamber, with that
resigned but saddened air that mothers wear when they are occupied in
repairing the consequences of some rash folly. Fred had seen her in his
boyhood knitting in the same way with the same, look on her face, when
he had been thrown from his pony, or had fallen from his velocipede. He
himself looked ill at ease and worried, as he lay on a sofa with his arm
in a sling. He was yawning and counting the hours. From time to time his
mother glanced at him. Her look was curious, and anxious, and loving,
all at the same time. He pretended to be asleep. He did not like to see
her watching him. His handsome masculine face, tanned that pale brown
which tropical climates give to fair complexions, looked odd as it rose
above a light-blue cape, a very feminine garment which, as it had no
sleeves, had been tied round his neck to keep him from being cold. He
felt himself, with some impatience, at the mercy of the most tender,
but the most sharp-eyed of nurses, a prisoner to her devotion, and made
conscious of her power every moment. Her attentions worried him; he knew
that they all meant "It is your own fault, my poor boy, that you are in
this state, and that your mother is so unhappy." He felt it. He knew as
well as if she had spoken that she was asking him to return to reason,
to marry, without more delay, their little neighbor in Normandy,
Mademoiselle d'Argeville, a niece of