t even cut it. What is it about?'

She hurried over the last mouth fuls, and washed the tips of her white
fingers in her glass while her husband in an absent-minded way gave
her some idea of the new volume. 'God in Nature,' a philosophic poem,
entered for the Boisseau prize.

'Oh, I do hope he will get it. He must, he must. They are so nice, he
and his sister, and he is so good to the poor paralysed creature. Do you
think he will?'

Astier would not commit himself. He could not promise, but he would
certainly recommend Freydet, who seemed to him to be really improving.
'If he asks you for my personal opinion, it is this: there is still a
little too much for my taste, but much less than in his other books. You
may tell him that his old master is pleased.'

Too much of what? Less of what? It must be supposed that Madame Astier
knew, for she sought no explanation, but left the table and passed,
quite happy, into her drawing room--as the study must be considered for
the day. Astier, more and more absorbed in thought, lingered for some
minutes, breaking up with his knife what remained in his plate of the
Auvergne cheese; then, being disturbed in his meditations by Corentine,
who, without heeding him, was rapidly clearing the table, he rose
stiffly and went up, by a little staircase like a cat-ladder, to his
attic, where he took up his magnifying glass and resumed the examination
of the old manuscript upon which he had been busy since the morning.

CHAPTER II.

SITTING straight, with the reins well held up in the most correct
fashion, Paul Astier drove his two-wheeled cart at a stiff pace to the
scene of his mysterious breakfast 'with some business people.' 'Tclk!
tclk!' Past the Pont Royal, past the quays, past the Place de la
Concorde. The road was so smooth, the day so fine, that as terraces,
trees, and fountains went by, it would have needed but a little
imagination on his part to believe himself carried away on the wings of
Fortune. But the young man was no visionary, and as he bowled along
he examined the new leather and straps, and put questions about the
hay-merchant to his groom, a young fellow perched at his side looking as
cool and as sharp as a stable terrier. The hay-merchant, it seemed, was
as bad as the rest of them, and grumbled about supplying the fodder.

'Oh, does he?' said Paul absently; his mind had already passed to
another subject. His mother's revelations ran in his head. Fifty-three
year