This state of affairs continued for some months, and at the end of that time the Duke felt that he ought to make his son acquainted with his projects.

One Sunday, after supper, he commenced this task.

Norbert had never seen his father so animated as he was at this moment, when all his ancestral pride blazed in his eyes.

He explained at length the acts and deeds of those heroes who had been the ornament of their house, and enumerated the influential marriages which had been made by them in the days when their very name was a power in the land.

And what remained of all their power and rank, save their Parisian domicile, their old Chateau, and some two hundred thousand francs of income?
Norbert could hardly credit what he heard; he had never believed that his father possessed such enormous wealth.