There was a concert of polite refusals, friendly urgings, and 'thank-yous' in all sorts of voices.

It is unnecessary to say that much the greater share fell to the lot of Clementine; but she did not wait to be urged to accept them, for, in the existing state of affairs, all these pretty things would be but as a part of the wedding gifts--not going out of the family.
Leon had brought his father an exceedingly handsome dressing gown of a cloth embroidered with gold, some antiquarian books found in Moscow, a pretty picture by Greuze, which had been stuck out of the way, by the luckiest of accidents, in a mean shop at Gastinitvor; two magnificent specimens of rock-crystal, and a cane that had belonged to Humboldt.
"You see," said he to M.Renault, on handing him this historic staff, "that the postscript of your last letter did not fall overboard." The old professor received the present with visible emotion.
"I will never use it," said he to his son.

"The Napoleon of science has held it in his hand: what would one think if an old sergeant like me should permit himself to carry it in his walks in the woods?
And the collections?
Were you not able to buy anything from them?
Did they sell very high ?" "They were not sold," answered Leon.

"All were placed in the National Museum at Berlin.

But in my eagerness to satisfy you, I made a thief of myself in a strange way.