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124 trimmed with Angora fur, and asked him whether he had yet breakfasted. He thanked her graciously, kissed her hand and brow, and desired to see Orcio.

Martha changed colour. She is not so jealous, even of women, as she is of her beautiful little boy, perhaps because he is with her constantly.

The nursemaid brought Orcio, who at once jumped on to his father's knee, and began talking at the top of his voice about a number of things which had happened to interest him since the day before.

Imszanski was enchanted with the little one, and kissed his rosy face.

For men like him, there is something incomparably sublime and public-spirited in the fact of being a father; this they hold to be the only thing that compensates and atones for the life they lead.

Martha shrank away; standing at a distance, fury in her heart and a smile on her face, she looked on at the father caressing his boy.

"Look, you," she whispered to me, "this—this is my vocation, this the mission of my life; all the pain I have undergone, all the