"Oh! yes," snarled Clapart, "you expect fine things of him; but, mark
my words, there'll be squabbles wherever he goes."

"Will you never cease to find fault with that poor child?" said the
mother. "What has he done to you? If some day we should live at our

ease, we may owe it all to him; he has such a good heart--"
"Our bones will be jelly long before that fellow makes his way in the

world," cried Clapart. "You don't know your own child; he is
conceited, boastful, deceitful, lazy, incapable of--"

"Why don't you go to meet Poiret?" said the poor mother, struck to the
heart by the diatribe she had brought upon herself.

"A boy who has never won a prize at school!" continued Clapart.
To bourgeois eyes, the obtaining of school prizes means the certainty

of a fine future for the fortunate child.
"Did you win any?" asked his wife. "Oscar stood second in philosophy."

This remark imposed silence for a moment on Clapart; but presently he
began again.

"Besides, Madame Moreau hates him like poison, you know why. She'll
try to set her husband against him. Oscar to step into his shoes as

steward of Presles! Why he'd have to learn agriculture, and know how
to survey."

"He can learn."
"He--that pussy cat! I'll bet that if he does get a place down there,

it won't be a week before he does some doltish thing which will make
the count dismiss him."

"Good God! how can you be so bitter against a poor child who is full
of good qualities, sweet-tempered as an angel, incapable of doing harm

to any one, no matter who."
Just then the cracking of a postilion's whip and the noise of a

carriage stopping before the house was heard, this arrival having
apparently put the whole street into a commotion. Clapart, who heard

the opening of many windows, looked out himself to see what was
happening.

"They have sent Oscar back to you in a post-chaise," he cried, in a
tone of satisfaction, though in truth he felt inwardly uneasy.

"Good heavens! what can have happened to him?" cried the poor mother,
trembling like a leaf shaken by the autumn wind.

Brochon here came up, followed by Oscar and Poiret.
"What has happened?" repeated the mother, addressing the stable-man.

"I don't know, but Monsieur Moreau is no longer steward of Presles,
and they say your son has caused it. His Excellency ordered that he

should be sent home to you. Here's a letter from poor Monsieur Moreau,
madame, which will tell you all. You never saw a man so changed in a

single day."
"Clapart, two glasses of wine for the postilion and for monsieur!"

cried the mother, flinging herself into a chair that she might read
the fatal letter. "Oscar," she said, staggering towards her bed, "do

you want to kill your mother? After all the cautions I gave you this
morning--"

She did not end her sentence, for she fainted from distress of mind.
When she came to herself she heard her husband saying to Oscar, as he

shook him by the arm:--
"Will you answer me?"

"Go to bed, monsieur," she said to her son. "Let him alone, Monsieur
Clapart. Don't drive him out of his senses; he is frightfully

changed."
Oscar did not hear his mother's last words; he had slipped away to bed

the instant that he got the order.
Those who remember their youth will not be surprised to learn that

after a day so filled with events and emotions, Oscar, in spite of the
enormity of his offences, slept the sleep of the just. The next day he

did not find the world so changed as he thought it; he was surprised
to be very hungry,--he who the night before had regarded himself as

unworthy to live. He had only suffered mentally. At his age mental
impressions succeed each other so rapidly that the last weakens its

predecessor, however deeply the first may have been cut in. For this
reason corporalpunishment, though philanthropists are deeply opposed

to it in these days, becomes necessary in certain cases for certain
children. It is, moreover, the most natural form of retribution, for

Nature herself employs it; she uses pain to impress a lasting memory
of her precepts. If to the shame of the preceding evening, unhappily

too transient, the steward had joined some personal chastisement,
perhaps the lesson might have been complete. The discernment with

which such punishment needs to be administered is the greatest
argument against it. Nature is never mistaken; but the teacher is, and

frequently.
Madame Clapart took pains to send her husband out, so that she might

be alone with her son the next morning. She was in a state to excite
pity. Her eyes, worn with tears; her face, weary with the fatigue of a

sleepless night; her feeble voice,--in short, everything about her
proved an excess of suffering she could not have borne a second time,

and appealed to sympathy.
When Oscar entered the room she signed to him to sit down beside her,

and reminded him in a gentle but grieved voice of the benefits they
had so constantly received from the steward of Presles. She told him

that they had lived, especially for the last six years, on the
delicate charity of Monsieur Moreau; and that Monsieur Clapart's

salary, also the "demi-bourse," or scholarship, by which he (Oscar)
had obtained an education, was due to the Comte de Serizy. Most of

this would now cease. Monsieur Clapart, she said, had no claim to a
pension,--his period of service not being long enough to obtain one.

On the day when he was no longer able to keep his place, what would
become of them?

"For myself," she said, "by nursing the sick, or living as a
housekeeper in some great family, I could support myself and Monsieur

Clapart; but you, Oscar, what could you do? You have no means, and you
must earn some, for you must live. There are but four careers for a

young man like you,--commerce, government employment, the licensed
professions, or military service. All forms of commerce need capital,

and we have none to give you. In place of capital, a young man can
only give devotion and his capacity. But commerce also demands the

utmost discretion, and your conduct yesterday proves that you lack it.
To enter a government office, you must go through a long probation by

the help of influence, and you have just alienated the only protector
that we had,--a most powerful one. Besides, suppose you were to meet

with some extraordinary help, by which a young man makes his way
promptly either in business or in the public employ, where could you

find the money to live and clothe yourself during the time that you
are learning your employment?"

Here the mother wandered, like other women, into wordy lamentation:
What should she do now to feed the family, deprived of the benefits

Moreau's stewardship had enabled him to send her from Presles? Oscar
had overthrown his benefactor's prosperity! As commerce and a

government clerkship were now impossible, there remained only the
professions of notary and lawyer, either barristers or solicitors, and

sheriffs. But for those he must study at least three years, and pay
considerable sums for entrance fees, examinations, certificates, and

diplomas; and here again the question of maintenance presented itself.
"Oscar," she said, in conclusion, "in you I had put all my pride, all

my life. In accepting for myself an unhappy old age, I fastened my
eyes on you; I saw you with the prospect of a fine career, and I

imagined you succeeding in it. That thought, that hope, gave me
courage to face the privations I have endured for six years in order

to carry you through school, where you have cost me, in spite of the
scholarship, between seven and eight hundred francs a year. Now that

my hope is vanishing, your future terrifies me. I cannot take one
penny from Monsieur Clapart's salary for my son. What can you do? You

are not strong enough to mathematics to enter any of the technical
schools; and, besides, where could I get the three thousand francs

board-money which they extract? This is life as it is, my child. You
are eighteen, you are strong. Enlist in the army; it is your only

means, that I can see, to earn your bread."
Oscar knew as yet nothing whatever of life. Like all children who have