Recognizing in the latter--as he thought in his honest heart--a man in better case to make her happy, this gentleman I speak of went his ways.

He came upon her afterwards, broken and abandoned, and he gathered up the poor shards of her shattered life, and sought with tender but unavailing hands to piece them together again.

And when she died he vowed to stand my friend and to make up to me for the want I had of parents.

'Tis by his bounty that to-day I am lord of Maligny that was for generations the property of my mother's people.

'Tis by his bounty and loving care that I am what I am, and not what so easily I might have become had the seed sown by my father been allowed to put out shoots." He paused, as if bethinking himself, and looked at her with a wistful, inquiring smile.