ou would only have to select between suicide and the vilest
existence; whereas now you are above want.'

"I was passing before a small restaurant. I went in; for I was
very hungry, having, so to speak, eaten nothing for several days
past. Besides, I felt anxious to count my treasure. The Baron de
Thaller had given me nine hundred and thirty francs.

"This sum, which exceeded the utmost limits of my ambition, seemed
inexhaustible to me: I was dazzled by its possession.

"'And yet,' I thought, 'had M. de Thaller happened to have ten
thousand francs in his pockets he would have given them to me all
the same.'

"I was at a loss to explain this strange generosity. Why his
surprise when he first saw me, then his anger, and his haste to get
rid of me? How was it that a man whose mind must be filled with
the gravest cares had so distinctly remembered me, and the letter
I had written to his wife? Why, after showing himself so generous,
had he so strictly excluded me from his house?

"After vainly trying for some time to solve this riddle, I concluded
that I must be the victim of my own imagination; and I turned my
attention to making the best possible use of my sudden fortune. On
the same day, I took a little room in the Faubourg St. Denis; and
I bought myself a sewing-machine. Before the week was over, I had
work before me for several months. Ah! this time it seemed indeed
that I had nothing more to apprehend from destiny; and I looked
forward, without fear, to the future. At the end of a month, I was
earning four to five francs a day, when, one afternoon, a stout man,
very well dressed, looking honest and good-natured, and speaking
French with some difficulty, made his appearance at my room. He
was an American he stated, and had been sent to me by the woman for
whom I worked. Having need of a skilled Parisian work-woman, he
came to propose to me to follow him to New York, where he would
insure me a brilliant position.

"But I knew several poor girls, who, on the faith of dazzling
promises, had expatriated themselves. Once abroad, they had been
shamefully abandoned, and had been driven, to escape starvation,
to resort to the vilest expedients. I refused, therefore, and
frankly gave him my reasons for doing so.

"My visitor at once protested indignantly. Whom did I take him
for? It was a fortune that I was refusing. He guaranteed me in
New York board, lodging, and two hundred francs a month. He would