She bore him a boy and a girl, twins; and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, he indulged the hope that--the ambition and pride of all the various Grandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all strife being lulled--he should yet see this Honore right the wrongs which he had not quite dared to uproot.

And Honore inherited the hope and began to make it an intention and aim even before his departure (with his half-brother the other Honore) for school in Paris, at the early age of fifteen.

Numa soon after died, and Honore, after various fortunes in Paris, London, and elsewhere, in the care, or at least company, of a pious uncle in holy orders, returned to the ancestral mansion.

The father's will--by the law they might have set it aside, but that was not their way--left the darker Honore the bulk of his fortune, the younger a competency.

The latter--instead of taking office, as an ancient Grandissime should have done--to the dismay and mortification of his kindred, established himself in a prosperous commercial business.