married the bashful young man who had until then been the dancing partner of all the scraggy young ladies of thirty and upward. In other days it had more than once happened you to forget when his turn came for a quadrille, although you had his name written down on your little ivory tablets. It was rather a feeling of pity, you must admit, that this good M. Jules inspired in you at that time, with his stiffly starched cravats and his cleaned gloves. You married him, though, after all, and he has turned out to be an industrious man and a good husband and father. He is now second head-clerk, like deceased Monsieur your father, and like him he is always characterized by his superiors in the same discouraging terms: "A quiet, useful man in his place; to be retained in the service." When you presented him with his second boy the poor man was stirred by a feeble impulse of ambition, and in the hope to secure advancement published a couple of small pamphlets upon special subjects, but the powers that be discharged their obligation toward him by awarding him academic honors.
Three children there are now,—first two boys and then a little minx of a daughter who came sometime afterward,—and they are a heavy load to carry! The oldest, fortunately, is at college, partially assisted by state funds; by dint of strict economy the two ends are made to meet. But what a monotonous, trivial way of living! The father leaves home early in the morning taking with him his breakfast—a sandwich and a little bottle of wine and water—in the pocket of his overcoat, for he is to give a lesson in geography at a young ladies'
