fast, though it was a right good and substantial meal. Dogs and
hawks are attached by feeding only--man must have kindness, if you
would bind him with the cords of affection and obligation. But he is
an extraordinary person; and that beautiful emanation that is even
now vanishing--surely a thing so fair belongs not to this mean place,
belongs not even to the money gathering merchant himself, though he
seems to exert authority over her, as doubtless he does over all whom
chance brings within his little circle. It is wonderful what ideas of
consequence these Flemings and Frenchmen attach to wealth--so much
more than wealth deserves, that I suppose this old merchant thinks the
civility I pay to his age is given to his money. I a Scottish gentleman
of blood and coat armour, and he a mechanic of Tours!"

Such were the thoughts which hastily traversed the mind of young
Durward; while Maitre Pierre said with a smile, and at the same time
patting Jacqueline's heed, from which hung down her long tresses, "This
young man will serve me, Jacqueline, thou mayst withdraw. I will tell
thy negligent kinswoman she does ill to expose thee to be gazed on
unnecessarily."

"It was only to wait on you," said the maiden. "I trust you will not be
displeased with my kinswoman, since"--

"Pasques dieu!" said the merchant, interrupting her, but not harshly,
"do you bandy words with me, you brat, or stay you to gaze upon the
youngster here?--Begone--he is noble, and his services will suffice me."

Jacqueline vanished; and so much was Quentin Durward interested in her
sudden disappearance that it broke his previous thread of reflection,
and he complied mechanically when Maitre Pierre said, in the tone of
one accustomed to be obeyed, as he threw himself carelessly upon a large
easy chair, "Place that tray beside me."

The merchant then let his dark eyebrows sink over his keen eyes so that
the last became scarce visible, or but shot forth occasionally a quick
and vivid ray, like those of the sun setting behind a dark cloud,
through which its beams are occasionally darted, but singly and for an
instant.

"That is a beautiful creature," said the old man at last, raising
his head, and looking steadily and firmly at Quentin, when he put the
question,--"a lovely girl to be the servant of an auberge [an inn]? She
might grace the board of an honest burgess; but 'tis a vile education, a
base origin."

It sometimes happens that a chance shot will demo