"Light a lamp and take it into my room, and get my bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once." While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying these instructions, the brothers went into their father's former laboratory, of which the priest had now made a spacious study.

And it was with a cry of joyous astonishment that the _savant_ greeted them on seeing them enter the room side by side, the one supporting the other.

"What, together!" he exclaimed.

"Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greater pleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding." Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features.

His yellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeks and jaw.