embered. Industrious,
self-willed, full of life as she had once been, she was now but a limp
human rag. And yet her case was recorded in medical annals as one of the
renowned Gaude's great miracles of cure. Ah! how truly had Boutan spoken
in saying that people ought to wait to see the real results of those
victorious operations which were sapping the vitality of France.

Cecile, however, with eager affection, kissed the three children, who
somehow continued to grow up in that wrecked household. Tears came
to her eyes, and directly Madame Joseph had given her back the
work-materials entrusted to Euphrasie she hurried Mathieu away. And, as
they reached the street, she said: "Thank you, Monsieur Froment; I can
go home on foot now--. How frightful, eh? Ah! as I told you, we shall
be in Paradise, Norine and I, in the quiet room which you have so kindly
promised to rent for us."

On reaching Beauchene's establishment Mathieu immediately repaired to
the workshops, but he could obtain no precise information respecting his
threshing-machine, though he had ordered it several months previously.
He was told that the master's son, Monsieur Maurice, had gone out on
business, and that nobody could give him an answer, particularly as the
master himself had not put in an appearance at the works that week. He
learnt, however, that Beauchene had returned from a journey that very
day, and must be indoors with his wife. Accordingly, he resolved to call
at the house, less on account of the threshing-machine than to decide
a matter of great interest to him, that of the entry of one of his twin
sons, Blaise, into the establishment.

This big fellow had lately left college, and although he had only
completed his nineteenth year, he was on the point of marrying a
portionless young girl, Charlotte Desvignes, for whom he had conceived
a romantic attachment ever since childhood. His parents, seeing in this
match a renewal of their own former loving improvidence, had felt moved,
and unwilling to drive the lad to despair. But, if he was to marry,
some employment must first be found for him. Fortunately this could
be managed. While Denis, the other of the twins, entered a technical
school, Beauchene, by way of showing his esteem for the increasing
fortune of his good cousins, as he now called the Froments, cordially
offered to give Blaise a situation at his establishment.

On being ushered into Constance's little yellow salon, Mathieu found her
ta