The weariness and suffering betrayed by the thin face and the clinging of the skin to the bones, had in themselves a sort of charm.
"Good-evening, Pierquin," said Monsieur Claes.
Once more a husband and a father, he took his youngest child from his wife's lap and tossed him in the air.
"See that little fellow!" he exclaimed to the notary.

"Doesn't such a pretty creature make you long to marry?
Take my word for it, my dear Pierquin, family happiness consoles a man for everything.

Up, up!" he cried, tossing Jean into the air; "down, down! up! down!" The child laughed with all his heart as he went alternately to the ceiling and down to the carpet.

The mother turned away her eyes that she might not betray the emotion which the simple play caused her,--simple apparently, but to her a domestic revolution.
"Let me see how you can walk," said Balthazar, putting his son on the floor and throwing himself on a sofa near his wife.
The child ran to its father, attracted by the glitter of the gold buttons which fastened the breeches just above the slashed tops of his boots.
"You are a darling!" cried Balthazar, kissing him; "you are a Claes, you walk straight.

Well, Gabriel, how is Pere Morillon ?" he said to his eldest son, taking him by the ear and twisting it.