enough away to make it seem comfortable. But in reality they were
talking about 'Thanase.

"He cannot write," said the cure; "and if he could, no one at home
could read his letters."

The ex-governor promised to look after him.

"And how," he asked, "does Sosthene's little orphan get on?"

The cure smiled. "He is well--physically. A queer, high-strung child;
so old, yet so young. In some things he will be an infant as long as
he lives; in others, he has been old from the cradle. He takes every
thing in as much earnest as a man of fifty. What is to become of him?"

"Oh! he will come out all right," said the ex-governor.

"That depends. Some children are born with fixed characters: you can
tell almost from the start what they are going to be. Be they much or
little, they are complete in themselves, and it makes comparatively
little difference into what sort of a world you drop them."

"'Thanase, for instance," said the ex-governor.

"Yes, you might say 'Thanase; but never Bonaventure. He is the other
type; just as marked and positive traits, but those traits not yet
builded into character: a loose mass of building-material, and the
beauty or ugliness to which such a nature may arrive depends on who
and what has the building of it into form. What he may turn out to be
at last will be no mere product of circumstances; he is too original
for that. Oh, he's a study! Another boy under the same circumstances
might turn out entirely different; and yet it will make an immense
difference how his experiences are allowed to combine with his
nature." The speaker paused a moment, while Bonaventure's other friend
stood smiling with interest; then the priest added, "He is just now
struggling with his first great experience."

"What is that?"

"It belongs," replied the cure, smiling in his turn, "to the
confidences of the confessional. But," he added, with a little anxious
look, "I can tell you what it will do; it will either sweeten his
whole nature more and more, or else make it more and more bitter, from
this time forth. And that is no trifle to you or me; for whether for
good or bad, in a large way or in a small way, he is going to make
himself felt."

The ex-governor mused. "I'm glad the little fellow has you for a
friend, father.--I'll tell you; if Sosthene and his wife will part
with him, and you will take him to live with you, and, mark you, not
try too hard to make a priest of him, I will bear his expenses."

"I w