cream, and a bottle of champagne was sent to the kitchen. No wonder Master Eustace took on the graces of an heir-apparent! Once, I remember, the mother and son were overtaken in the festal promenade by some people who had come to live in the neighborhood, and who drove up rather officiously to leave their cards. They stared in amazement from the carriage window, and were told Mrs. Garnyer was not at home. A few days later we heard that Mrs. Garnyer was out of her mind; she had been found masquerading in her grounds with her little boy, in the most indecent costume. From time to time she received an invitation, and occasionally she accepted one. When she went out she deepened her mourning, but she always came home in a fret. "It is the last house I will go to," she declared, as I helped her to undress. "People's neglect I can bear, and thank them for it; but Heaven deliver me from their kindness! I won't be patronized—I won't, I won't! Shall I, my boy? We'll wait till you grow up, shan't we, my darling? Then his poor little mother shan't be patronized, shall she, my brave little man?" The child was constantly dangling at his mother's skirts, and was seldom beyond the reach of some such passionate invocation.
A preceptor had at last been found of a less inflammable composition than the others—a worthy,
