one another!' be alone glorified!"

"Ah, sir," exclaimed the abbe, "what a charitable idea! Now I understand
your emotion on reading these lines of such touching simplicity."

In truth, as he concluded the reading, the voice of Jacques Ferrand had
faltered, his patience and courage were at an end; but, watched by
Polidori, he dared not infringe Rodolph's slightest order.

"M. l'Abbe, is not Jacques's idea excellent?" asked Polidori.

"Ah, sir, I, who know all the wretchedness of the city, can more easily
comprehend of what importance may be for poor workmen out of employ a
loan which may seem so trifling to the happy in this world! Ah, what
good may be done if persons but knew that with thirty or forty francs,
which would be scrupulously repaid, if without interest, they might
often save the future, and sometimes the honour of a family, whom the
want of work places in the grasp of misery and want!"

"Jacques values your praises, Monsieur l'Abbe," replied Polidori. "And
you will have still more to say to him when you hear of his institution
of a gratuitous Mont-de-Piete (pawnbroking establishment), for Jacques
has not forgotten this, but made it an adjunct to his Bank for the
Poor."

"Can it be true?" exclaimed the priest, clasping his hands in
admiration.

The notary contrived to read with a rapid voice the other details, which
referred to loans to workmen whose labour was suspended by fatigue or
illness, and his intention to establish a Bank for the Poor producing
twenty-five thousand francs a year for advances on pledges, which were
never to go beyond ten francs for each pledge, without any charges for
interest. The management and office of the loans in the Bank for the
Poor was to be in the Rue du Temple, Number 17, in a house bought for
the purpose. An income of ten thousand francs a year was to be devoted
to the costs and management of the Bank for the Poor, whose manager was
to be--

Polidori here interrupted the notary, and said to the priest:

"You will see, sir, by the choice of the manager, that Jacques knows how
to repair an involuntary error. You know that by a mistake, which he
deeply deplores, he had falsely accused his cashier of embezzling a sum
which he afterwards found. Well, it is this honest fellow, Francois
Germain by name, that Jacques has named as manager of the institution,
with four thousand francs a year salary. Is it not admirable, Monsieur
l'Abbe?"

"Nothing now can astonish me, o