The names of those two men are graven on our hearts and we have taken them as our models.We should be happy indeed if we ourselves could some day acquire in Paris the influence that country doctor had in his canton.But here, the sore is vast, beyond our strength at present.
May God preserve to us Madame, may he send us some young helpers like you, and perhaps we may yet leave behind us an institution worthy of his divine religion.And now good-bye; your initiation begins--Ah! Ichatter like a professor and forget the essential thing! Here is the address of that family," he added, giving Godefroid a piece of paper;"I have added the number of Dr.Berton's house in the rue d'Enfer; and now, go and pray to God to help you."[*] The Country Doctor.Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
[I assume the "Little, Brown & Co." is a reference to a publisher.Iwill remove this in the finished version of the text.Elsewhere she has used a different method of indicating a reference to another work in La Comedie.--JB.]
Godefroid took the old man's hands and pressed them tenderly, wishing him good-night, and assuring him he would not neglect a single point of his advice.
"All that you have said to me," he added, "is graven in my memory forever."The old man smiled, expressing no doubts; then he rose, to kneel in his accustomed place.Godefroid retired, joyful in at last sharing the mysteries of that house and in having an occupation, which, feeling as he did then, was to him an untold pleasure.
The next day at breakfast, Monsieur Alain's place was vacant, but no one remarked upon it; Godefroid made no allusion to the cause of his absence, neither did any one question him as to the mission the old man had entrusted to him; he thus took his first lesson in discreetness.Nevertheless, after breakfast, he did take Madame de la Chanterie apart and told her that he should be absent for some days.