Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 34: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 THE FIRST TEARS. they carried to their lips they again placed back untouched upon their plates. After the evening prayer the father . embraced his three children. He retained Jacques the longest upon his heart. ‘*Go to sleep,’’ he said to him; “‘but previously ask God for courage to live the life which begins for you to-mor- row.”’ The father withdrew, and the three children began to weep. Not one had the strength to express his disappoint- ment, and each of them found fewer words to say than kisses to give. Toward dawn the family gathered together on the threshold of the door. Jacques had put on large shoes and gaiters, a leather belt tightened his blouse around his waist, a small haversack was suspended to his shoulders, and his hand was armed with a stout stick of hollywood. Pierre and Claudine were sobbing. Jacques was slightly pale, but his look had regained all its assur- ance and firmness. ‘*Where are you going, my son?’’ said the father. Even at this epoch Paris was the magic city, the radiant center which attracted every active intelligence, every audacious mind, every unquiet imagination. Jacques had not fora moment thought of the details of the extreme part which he had chosen, nevertheless at his father’s question, he unhesitatingly replied: ‘*To Paris. ’”’ “It is a great city, full of perils and surprises. Many have arrived there poor like yourself, and have gone away rich, but better to go away from it miserable than to leave your honesty there. May God bless you, my son.’’ Jacques knelt down between his brother and sister, and Guillaume placed his trembling hands upon the forehead of his first-born child. After he had risen, the father wished to slip in Jacques’ hand a purse, in which some gold shone, but Jacques gave it back to him. ‘*Keep this gold,’’ he said to him; ‘‘it is Claudine’s dowry. I have arms andin my haversack fifty livres which I have earned.”’ The father did not insist, but drawing from his bosom a ein attached to a ribbon, he passed it around Jacques’ neck. **Do you recognize it, Jacques?’’ he said tohim, ‘‘Itis the medallion lost by the stranger five years ago. You have well earned it, therefore keep it. If you again come across the gentleman to whom it belongs, you will return it to him, and perhaps he will recall the hospitality of our Eomichbooks m (E(o)