natural sensibility, and the laxity of morals then reigning at Paris, permitted her to occupy herself at the same time with the happiness of the father and the education of the son.  When the father deserted her after a time, he left her the child, to comfort her somewhat by this mark of confidence and affection.  She took him out three times a week; she dressed him and combed him; she fondled him and took him with her to church, and made him play with a handsome Spaniard, who had been for some time her secretary.  Besides, she neglected no opportunity of inculcating precepts of sound morality.  Thus the child, being surprised at seeing her one evening press a kiss upon the forehead of her secretary, cried out, with the blunt candor of his age: 

“Why, Madame, do you kiss a gentleman who is not your husband?”

“Because, my dear,” replied the Countess, “our good Lord commands us to be charitable and affectionate to the poor, the infirm, and the exile; and Monsieur Perez is an exile.”

Louis de Camors merited better care, for he was a generous-hearted child; and his comrades of the college of Louis-le-Grand always remembered the warm-heartedness and natural grace which made them forgive his successes during the week, and his varnished boots and lilac gloves on Sunday.  Toward the close of his college course, he became particularly attached to a poor bursar, by name Lescande, who excelled in mathematics, but who was very ungraceful, awkwardly shy and timid, with a painful sensitiveness to the peculiarities of his person.  He was nicknamed “Wolfhead,” from the refractory nature of his hair; but the elegant Camors stopped the scoffers by protecting the young man with his friendship.  Lescande felt this deeply, and adored his friend, to whom he opened the inmost recesses of his heart, letting out some important secrets.

He loved a very young girl who was his cousin, but was as poor as himself.  Still it was a providential thing for him that she was poor, otherwise he never should have dared to aspire to her.  It was a sad occurrence that had first thrown Lescande with his cousin—­the loss of her father, who was chief of one of the Departments of State.

After his death she lived with her mother in very straitened circumstances; and Lescande, on occasion of his last visit, found her with soiled cuffs.  Immediately after he received the following note: 

“Pardon me, dear cousin!  Pardon my not wearing white cuffs.  But I must tell you that we can change our cuffs—­my mother and I—­only three times a week.  As to her, one would never discover it.  She is neat as a bird.  I also try to be; but, alas! when I practise the piano, my cuffs rub.  After this explanation, my good Theodore, I hope you will love me as before.

“Juliette.”

Lescande wept over this note.  Luckily he had his prospects as an architect; and Juliette had promised to wait for him ten years, by which time he would either be dead, or living deliciously in a humble house with his cousin.  He showed the note, and unfolded his plans to Camors.  “This is the only ambition I have, or which I can have,” added Lescande.  “You are different.  You are born for great things.”