This was a delightful surprise, and she felt highly elated as she ran about, before going home, to settle some small bills which she had been obliged to contract, and to purchase a few luxuries for the invalid.
As the weeks slipped by she became deeply interested in her work, and had her father been well she would have been perfectly happy, for she felt that she had now a more worthy object in life than that of living for her own amusement and the demands of fashionable society, as heretofore.
She entertained a profound respect for Monsieur Lamonti, who was invariably courteous and considerate, and never appeared to be ruffled in the slightest degree, no matter how perplexing his business might be.
She gradually learned considerable of his history, as from time to time he referred to his past, and ascertained that his life had been full of romance and sorrow.
He belonged to a noble family of France, but had incurred the lasting displeasure of his relatives by marrying contrary to their wishes and was disinherited in consequence. But he loved his beautiful girl-wife with all the strength of his manhood, and preferred exile and poverty a thousand times with her, to fame and fortune without her.
They had retired to a quiet little village immediately after their marriage, and where, with a little money, together with unlimited energy and perseverance, Monsieur Lamonti had perfected an invention which ere long brought him large returns in sales and royalties, and at the end of fifteen years he was the possessor of a large fortune.
Then his wife was suddenly taken from him, leaving him with a lovely daughter, fourteen years of age, and who now became all-in-all to his almost broken heart.
Wishing her to profit by the very best education which his country afforded and her future position would demand, he transferred his residence to Paris,where he remained for the ten succeeding years, and where his daughter married a worthy young man, of whom he heartily approved.
Her child, the little Lucille, was born a year later, and she was only a few months old when her mother's health began to fail and she was ordered to Italy for change of scene and climate. She was accompanied by her husband, but the child was left behind with Monsieur Lamonti and in the care of an efficient nurse.
Two months later, both father and mother were drowned during a terrible gale while on a yachting excursion in the Mediteranean, and this tragic event and terrible affliction nearly deprived him of his mind for a time and aged him many years in appearance. But from that time all his thought and affection was centered in his granddaughter, who was a bright and promising child, and who, eventually, if she lived, would become sole heiress to his immense fortune.