Since then I have, in my own very small way, succeeded in life, until I have risen to the honor of superintending the estate of Monsieur Danville." "Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation rather surprises me.

Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just as Danville's father was a merchant; the only difference between them was that one failed and the other realized a large fortune.

Why should you speak of yourself as honored by holding your present place ?" "Have you never heard ?" exclaimed Lomaque, with an appearance of great astonishment, "or can you have heard, and forgotten, that Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of France?
Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that she condescended when she married her late husband; and that her great object in life is to get the title of her family (years since extinct in the male line) settled on her son ?" "Yes," replied Trudaine; "I remember to have heard something of this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time, having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe.

You have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque; have you"-- he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land-steward full in the face--"have you found him a good and kind master ?" Lomaque's thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the question, as if he were never going to speak again.

He bowed--Trudaine waited--he only bowed again.