You can tell me your secrets, I shall understand you." "Oh! you are indeed an angel," cried Balthazar, falling at her feet, and shedding tears of tender feeling that made her quiver.

"Yes, we will understand each other in all things." "Ah!" she cried, "I would throw myself into those hellish fires which heat your furnaces to hear these words from your lips and to see you thus." Then, hearing her daughter's step in the anteroom, she sprang quickly forward.

"What is it, Marguerite ?" she said to her eldest daughter.
"My dear mother, Monsieur Pierquin has just come.

If he stays to dinner we need some table-linen; you forgot to give it out this morning." Madame Claes drew from her pocket a bunch of small keys and gave them to the young girl, pointing to the mahogany closets which lined the ante-chamber as she said: "My daughter, take a set of the Graindorge linen; it is on your right." "Since my dear Balthazar comes back to me, let the return be complete," she said, re-entering her chamber with a soft and arch expression on her face.

"My friend, go into your own room; do me the kindness to dress for dinner, Pierquin will be with us.