desired to get away from her useless and prolix instructions. "You will be sure to place the packages so that they cannot get wet if the weather should happen to change." "I've a hood," replied Pierrotin. "Besides, see, madame, with what care they are being placed." "Oscar, don't stay more than two weeks, no matter how much they may ask you," continued Madame Clapart, returning to her son. "You can't please Madame Moreau, whatever you do; besides, you must be home by the end of September. We are to go to Belleville, you know, to your uncle Cardot." "Yes, mamma." "Above all," she said, in a low voice, "be sure never to speak about servants; keep thinking all the time that Madame Moreau was once a waiting-maid." "Yes, mamma." Oscar, like all youths whose vanity is excessively ticklish, seemed annoyed at being lectured on the threshold of the Lion d'Argent. "Well, now good-bye, mamma. We shall start soon; there's the horse all harnessed." The mother, forgetting that she was in the open street, embraced her Oscar, and said, smiling, as she took a little roll from her basket:-- "Tiens! you were forgetting your roll and the chocolate! My child, once more, I repeat, don't take anything at the inns; they'd make you pay for the slightest thing ten times what it is worth." Oscar would fain have seen his mother farther off as she stuffed the bread and chocolate into his pocket. The scene had two witnesses,--two young men a few years older than Oscar, better dressed than he, without a mother hanging on to them, whose actions, dress, and ways all betokened that complete independence which is the one desire of a lad still tied to his mother's apron-strings. "He said _mamma_!" cried one of the new-comers, laughing. The words reached Oscar's ears and drove him to say, "Good-bye, mother!" in a tone of terrible impatience. Let us admit that Madame Clapart spoke too loudly, and seemed to wish to show to those around them her tenderness for the boy. "What is the matter with you, Oscar?" asked the poor hurt woman. "I