ulting physician though he was. He came, studied
the expression of Cesar's face, and observing symptoms of cerebral
congestion, ordered an immediate application of mustard plasters to the
soles of his feet.

"What can have caused it?" asked Constance.

"The damp weather," said the doctor, to whom Cesarine had given a hint.

It often becomes a physician's duty to utter deliberately some silly
falsehood, to save honor or life, to those who are about a sick-bed. The
old doctor had seen much in his day, and he caught the meaning of half
a word. Cesarine followed him to the staircase, and asked for directions
in managing the case.

"Quiet and silence; when the head is clear we will try tonics."

Madame Cesar passed two days at the bedside of her husband, who seemed
to her at times delirious. He lay in her beautiful blue room, and as he
looked at the curtains, the furniture, and all the costly magnificence
about him, he said things that were wholly incomprehensible to her.

"He must be out of his mind," she whispered to Cesarine, as Cesar rose
up in bed and recited clauses of the commercial Code in a solemn voice.

"'If the expenditure is judged excessive!' Away with those curtains!"

At the end of three terrible days, during which his reason was in
danger, the strong constitution of the Tourangian peasant triumphed; his
head grew clear. Monsieur Haudry ordered stimulants and generous diet,
and before long, after an occasional cup of coffee, Cesar was on his
feet again. Constance, wearied out, took her husband's place in bed.

"Poor woman!" said Cesar, looking at her as she slept.

"Come, papa, take courage! you are so superior a man that you will
triumph in the end. This trouble won't last; Monsieur Anselme will help
you."

Cesarine said these vague words in the tender tones which give courage
to a stricken heart, just as the songs of a mother soothe the weary
child tormented with pain as its cuts its teeth.

"Yes, my child, I shall struggle on; but say not a word to any one,--not
to Popinot who loves us, nor to your uncle Pillerault. I shall first
write to my brother; he is canon and vicar of the cathedral. He spends
nothing, and I have no doubt he has means. If he saves only three
thousand francs a year, that would give him at the end of twenty years
one hundred thousand francs. In the provinces the priests lay up money."

Cesarine hastened to bring her father a little table with writing-things
upon it,--amon