“The practice is not falling off, I can assure you.  In spite of age, I still possess good eyes and good teeth, the chief qualifications for a lawyer.  You will find everything ready and in good order here.

   “I am obliged to you for your good wishes, which I entirely
   reciprocate.

        “Your affectionate uncle,

“BrutusMouillard.”

   “P.  S.—­The Lorinet family have been to see me.  Mademoiselle Berthe
   is really quite pretty.  They have just inherited 751,351 francs.

   “I was employed by them in an action relating thereto.”

Yes, my dear uncle, you were employed, according to the formula, “in virtue of these and subsequent engagements,” and among the “subsequent engagements” you are kind enough to reckon one between Mademoiselle Berthe Lorinet, spinster, of no occupation, and M. Fabien Mouillard, lawyer.  “Fabien Mouillard, lawyer”—­that I may perhaps endure, but “Fabien Mouillard, son-in-law of Lorinet,” never!  One pays too dear for these rich wives.  Mademoiselle Berthe is half a foot taller than I, who am moderately tall, and she has breadth in proportion.  Moreover, I have heard that her wit is got in proportion.  I saw her when she was seventeen, in a short frock of staring blue; she was very thin then, and was escorted by a brother, squeezed inside a schoolboy’s suit; they were out for their first walk alone, both red-faced, flurried, shuffling along the sidewalks of Bourges.  That was enough.  For me she will always wear that look, that frock, that clumsy gait.  Recollections, my good uncle, are not unlike instantaneous photographs; and this one is a distinct negative to your designs.

March 3d.

The year is getting on.  My essay is growing.  The Junian Latin emerges from the fogs of Tiber.

I have had to return to the National Library.  My first visits were not made without trepidation.  I fancied that the beadle was colder, and that the keepers were shadowing me like a political suspect.  I thought it wise to change my side, so now I make out my list of books at the left-hand desk and occupy a seat on the left side of the room.

M. Charnot remains faithful to his post beneath the right-hand inkstand.

I have been watching him.  He is usually one of the first to arrive, with nimble, almost springy, step.  His hair, which he wears rather long, is always carefully parted in the middle, and he is always freshly shaven.  His habit of filling the pockets of his frock-coat with bundles of notes has made that garment swell out at the top into the shape of a basket.  He puts on a pair of spectacles mounted in very thin gold, and reads determinedly, very few books it is true, but they are all bound in vellum, and that fixes their date.  In his way of turning the leaves there is something sacerdotal.  He seems popular with