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Show 134 I'RINCES" MARYS GIFT HOOK FLEUR-I)E»LIS one. and the shower of chestnut hair that fell from beneath the other made you forget the poverty of her raiiiicnt. She was always clean and sweet and comfortable. for Pierre. with the gentleness and patience of a woman. washed and even mended. in a rough sort of a way. that the child might not wholly miss a mothers care. i i Matters were going on in this way. rather from bad to worse. when one November day father and child turned off a side-street. and trundled into one of the fashionable avenues of the city. Pierre did not often wheel his piano in front of brown-stone houses: it was too old and wheezy to commend itself to localities accustomed to Seidl‘s orchestra and the Hungarian band; but he scarcely knew to~dav whither his aimless feet were carryingr him. For two weeks he had gone out in the early morning and evening. leaving Fleur-dedis asleep and had spent an hour or two in a vain ipiest for employment. But his speech was broken. and he had only one armfismall wonder that he hated when hundreds of men with two arms and ninibler tono‘ues were seeking;~ the same thing and failing. People generally told diiin that he ought to have stayed at home in his own country where he belonged: but that. as he had not done that. his next best plan v'as to get back there at the earliest possible moment. If they had had time to hear his Justification for cumbering the earth of this free country. he might have told them that he left France a stroiirr young man with a strong young wife. and nearly fifteen hundred franc: for the inevitable rainy day; but that the rainy day had turned out to be a continual downpour. He was wondering in a (lull, vague sort of way, as they rattled along over the cobblestones. why there was not bread for the months that needed it. He wondered-why. throun'h no fault of his own. he should have been maimed and crippled. why the loss of wife should have followed the loss of limb. why there was not enouoh 1:13-1:11")! thewvocil'ld {or the people who were willing to do it, why - - (ren in ie ux 11'1 .' ~ - . - .. ‘ ' - i be swathed in furs while1 P‘Teiiiuilzl-lifffeh'iitiidtit lpdsiin hllm' mittens. . . i s ‘Z‘Htfil eie )ue iei laggct E1191'lhl min-hill: [33316385 \yas akinysteryto Pierre ‘1)u.p011i2. Search it as he _ 3s _ iii( no c} to its cuiious distribution of miseries and ltlll'LtlsthCs. It seemed to him that. if some people would be content to I]: I(Ii:uIllisttLlLeTtl-ess, ttliei‘e) might be a little more for him 1 but he was by 1 . "I 1 1 1‘ am 0 t ic soundness of this comfortable theory. A little ityiingf platte lon1 that harness, for instance, a yard less of lace on the p ] .. ia ‘lfywbt stepping into her brougham, a single diamond 10m 1U uiarquise ring‘no, that superficial and snarling phiIOsophy 135 did not help Pierre; there was neither envy nor rage in his heart as yet: only a dull despair, a groping in the dark for a reason. Many of these fortunate people, be supposed, deserved their fortunes, and had earned them. They were eleverer than he. and had friends and opportunities not vouchsafed, perhaps, to him. But why, since he was not clever, and since he had neither friends nor opportunities. should he have been deprived first of his principal means of self-support. and then of his consolation. his courage, his other and braver self! And now it was the anniversary of Marie's death. That made the day even harder to bear; for in seine subtle way the remembrance of certain hours or moments in a dear dead past is always more bitter when we say to ourselves with a sigh, " It was just a year ago." Nature was in no buoyant mood. A cold. drizzliiig rain. which ought to have been snow. fell from time to time. The chill dampness made people draw their wraps closer, and look drearily at the sky. Even the children appeared less joyous than usual. Men turned up the bottoms of their trousers and the collars of their coats. and hurried past one another with a gruff nod that would have been a smile on a sunny day. The bare branches of the trees shivered in the wind. and a few snow- birds huddled themselves together cheerlessly here and there. as if even ‘ they wished themselves farther south. did Pierre took out the rubber-cloth to cover his piano. and as he by. He so he saw two children at the second story of a fine house near be expected to be ordered away by a butter in livery at the moment never one could disclosed the limitations of his musical instrument, but in front, tell. the butler might be wooing the parlour-maid. so he drew up and. on of the drive-way. Fleur-de-lis had just walked several blocks. umbrella being lifted into her carriage. hoisted the dilapidated icotton turned the Pierre calico. of bit extra an in doll her wrapped and It seemed to .lltlll crank ; the piano began on " Loves Young Dream." tWisted the chords of his that. with every revolution of the handle, lie the battered old aching heart, and that presently it would break. as 5 [00 cylinders threatened to do, and for the same reason 3 becausc. film descends illdortune When them. upon played been had tunes many it can draw trcsh too thick and fast upon the human spirit. unless. without, from above. ll?- sinks accessions of strength from within. from that he is made in 'the inevitably into despair. Man may be conscious things. but tor the time image of God. fitted to endure, to L‘Ullqllclfililll or talls‘ into a cowardly be is common human clay, he failits and dies, a moment had conic to lethargy that is worse than death. Such a mic to stand Pierre Dupont. In his first crushing)r blow he had had |