La Grenadiere

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Louis very briefly explained his position to the headmaster, and went.
Marie came with him as far as the gateway. There Louis gave solemn
parting words of the tenderest counsel, telling Marie that he would
now be left alone in the world. He looked at his brother for a moment,
and put his arms about him, took one more long look, brushed a tear
from his eyes, and went, turning again and again till the very last to
see his brother standing there in the gateway of the school.

A month later Louis-Gaston, now an apprentice on board a man-of-war,
left the harbor of Rochefort. Leaning over the bulwarks of the
corvette Iris, he watched the coast of France receding swiftly till it
became indistinguishable from the faint blue horizon line. In a little
while he felt that he was really alone, and lost in the wide ocean,
lost and alone in the world and in life.

"There is no need to cry, lad; there is a God for us all," said an old
sailor, with rough kindliness in his thick voice.

The boy thanked him with pride in his eyes. Then he bowed his head,
and resigned himself to a sailor's life. He was a father.

ANGOULEME, August, 1832.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Brandon, Lady Marie Augusta
The Member for Arcis
The Lily of the Valley
La Grenadiere

Gaston, Louis
La Grenadiere
Letters of Two Brides

Gaston, Marie
La Grenadiere
Letters of Two Brides
The Member for Arcis

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