Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/209

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TRUTH WILL PREVAIL.
209

supervision of your servants as should be best for them, best for me, and best for your children."

"Bless your soul, Mr. Hartell, I never promised—I never thought of any such thing."

"I believe you," he replied, turning away with ineffable disgust, and with the desperate conviction that, save by a miracle, the blind could not be made to see. In the mean time, Adéle, perceiving blame laid elsewhere, felt her shoulders somewhat lightened, and she was thunderstruck when Mr. Hartell said to her, "Are you ready for Bridewell?"

"Oh, monsieur!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands and almost rolling her eyes out of their sockets.

"Be silent; no punishment is severe enough for you. You have sent out this innocent girl disgraced and suffering, and all but murdered my child."

"Mr. Hartell," interposed Lucy, "I have not suffered, and I never felt disgraced—pray do not punish her on my account. She is dreadfully punished already; I do not believe she meant to give Eugene enough to hurt him."

"That is the true truth, if monsieur will let me tell it. Dieu te benit, ma chere fille, vous avez un si bon coeur. God bless you, my dear! you have such a good heart." There are few hearts so indurated as not to be softened by such generosity as Lucy's, and Adéle for the first time felt something like real penitence, and wept tears of gratitude and honest grief. Mr. Hartell stooped to kiss his boy, and Lucy whispered, "Adéle has had such an awful lesson, that, maybe, if you would let her