Joseph has a good profession and he can live.

If you will do this, dear Agathe, you will never be an expense to Joseph.

Monsieur Desroches has just started his son as a notary; he would take your twelve thousand francs and pay you an annuity." Joseph seized his mother's candlestick, rushed up to his studio, and came down with three hundred francs.
"Here, Madame Descoings!" he cried, giving her his little store, "it is no business of ours what you do with your money; we owe you what you have lost, and here it is, almost in full." "Take your poor little all ?--the fruit of those privations that have made me so unhappy! are you mad, Joseph ?" cried the old woman, visibly torn between her dogged faith in the coming trey, and the sacrilege of accepting such a sacrifice.
"Oh! take it if you like," said Agathe, who was moved to tears by this action of her true son.
Madame Descoings took Joseph by the head, and kissed him on the forehead:-- "My child," she said, "don't tempt me.

I might only lose it.

The lottery, you see, is all folly." No more heroic words were ever uttered in the hidden dramas of domestic life.