TWO KIND HEARTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 100, 15 May 1880, Page 3

TWO KIND HEARTS.

There was an old chef de bureau at the Ministry of France—silent, brusque, and sometimes a little surly. Belated to Madame Recamier, and intreduced to her salon in his early youth, he had a sort of worship for her. In order to remain as muph as possible with her, he lived just in front of her house in the Rue de iSeyreg, and when he did not see her he gaw at least hey windows-. ?P r thirty years th e great interest of his life was to learn every morning if she were gay or gad, to run errands far her during the day, and dine at her table at night. She lost her sight and had no one to read to her; he offered his services, which were accepted. The first sitting was trying, for he read so volubly that she had a difficulty in following him. Not to cause him pain, Madame Recamier pretended to understand him, and patiently listened. Ajfc the end of several weeks she found to that he had slackened his that his faults of pronunciation had disappeared, and that he read better, then that he read well. Without being told by anyone, instructed by his heart still more than by his mind, he had perceived his -Shortcomings. The old man of seventy had gone to school again. Every morning he went secretly to a reading-master, and when he returned he practised for several hours. Thus, by force of toil, he had overcome the most tenacious of habits—a physical failing —and one contracted by the pse of‘a lifetime.