“Pious mentors!” thought I. “Pure guides for youth! If ‘Human Justice’ were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post, or enjoy your present credit.”

An idea once seized, I fell to work. “Human Justice” rushed before me in novel guise, a red, random beldam with arms akimbo. I saw her in her house, the den of confusion. Servants called to her for orders or help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled round her feet and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy, cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short black pipe and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny’s soothing syrup. She smoked and she sipped and she enjoyed her paradise, and whenever a cry of the suffering souls about her pierced her ears too keenly, my jolly dame seized the poker or the hearth-brush. If the offender was weak, wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him; if he was strong, lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.

Such was the sketch of “Human Justice,” scratched hurriedly on paper, and placed at the service of Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte. M. Emanuel read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to the trio, and withdrew.

After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course, the meeting did not at first run smooth. There was a crow to pluck with him; that forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed dialogue terminated in my being called “une petite moqueuse et sans-cœur,” and in monsieur’s temporary departure.

Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that such a transport as he had that day given way to could not be indulged with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon after, gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew near also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by monsieur laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation, passed to other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.

Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized. He half regretted, too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some allowance ought to be made for him. “But,” said he, “I can hardly expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my position, nor my history.”

His history! I took up the word at once. I pursued the idea.

“No, monsieur,” I rejoined. “Of course, as you say, I know neither your history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh no; I know nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger.”

“Hein?” he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.

“You know, monsieur, I only see you in classe—stern, dogmatic, hasty, imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without dependants, no duties. All we with whom you come in contact are machines, which you thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your recreations in public, by the light of the evening chandelier. This school and yonder college are your workshops, where you fabricate the ware called pupils. I don’t so much as know where you live; it is natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and need none.”

“I am judged,” said he. “Your opinion of me is just what I thought it was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by principle or faith. It is well, mademoiselle; such is our reward in this life.”