He remembered his promise, and desired to bequeath to his former host several ideas on the subject of the Absolute, which had come to him since the period of their meeting.

The letter plunged Claes into a reverie which apparently did honor to his patriotism; but his wife was not misled by it.

To her, this festal day brought a double mourning: and the ball, during which the House of Claes shone with departing lustre, was sombre and sad in spite of its magnificence, and the many choice treasures gathered by the hands of six generations, which the people of Douai now beheld for the last time.
Marguerite Claes, just sixteen, was the queen of the day, and on this occasion her parents presented her to society.

She attracted all eyes by the extreme simplicity and candor of her air and manner, and especially by the harmony of her form and countenance with the characteristics of her home.

She was the embodiment of the Flemish girl whom the painters of that country loved to represent,--the head perfectly rounded and full, chestnut hair parted in the middle and laid smoothly on the brow, gray eyes with a mixture of green, handsome arms, natural stoutness which did not detract from her beauty, a timid air, and yet, on the high square brow an expression of firmness, hidden at present under an apparent calmness and docility.