of my empty purse, but you have filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart. Thank you, my friends — thank you.” And as he could not embrace every one present, who were all tearful, too, philosophers as they were, he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, “Poor fellow!

so you have, on my account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor.”

“Oh! it is a mere nothing,” replied the poet; “if your creditors will only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales, which, at two editions each, will pay off the debt.”