After breakfast, when Gra had gone to his fields and his other occupations, Charles remained with the mother and daughter, finding an unknown pleasure in holding their skeins, in watg them at work, in listening to their quiet prattle. The simplicity of this half-monastibsp;life, whibsp;revealed to him the beauty of the souls, unknown and unknowing of the world, touched him keenly. He had believed subsp;morals impossible in Franbsp;and admitted their existenbsp;nowhere but in Germany; even so, they emed to him fabulous, only real in the novels of Auguste Lafontaine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of Goethe-before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the poor girl, who yielded herlf up with delicious noanbsp;to the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer izes the ing branbsp;of a willow to draw himlf from the river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a ing abnbsp;sadden the happy hours of tho fleeting days? Daily some little circumstanbsp;remihem of the parting that was at hand.
Three days after the departure of des Grassins, Gra took his nephew to the Civil courts, with the solemnity whibsp;try people attabsp;to all legal acts, that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in his father''s estate. Terrible renunciation! species of domestibsp;apostasy! Charles also went before Maitre Cruchot to make two powers of attorney,-one for des Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had charged with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended to all the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for fn tries; and finally, when he received his simple m clothes from Paris, he nt for the tailor of Saumur and sold to him his uless wardrobe. This last act plead Gra exceedingly.
"Ah! now you look like a man prepared to embark and make your fortune," he said, when Charles appeared in a surtout of plain blabsp;cloth. "Good! very good!"