ousin with courtesy, but he was obviously
sad and humiliated. Old Conyncks guessed his thoughts, and said with
blunt frankness while they were breakfasting:--

"I have some of your pictures, cousin; I have a taste for pictures,--a
ruinous passion, but we all have our manias."

"Dear uncle!" exclaimed Marguerite.

"The world declares that you are ruined, cousin; but the treasure of
a Claes is there," said Conyncks, tapping his forehead, "and here,"
striking his heart; "don't you think so? I count upon you: and for that
reason, having a few spare ducats in my wallet, I put them to use in
your service."

"Ah!" cried Balthazar, "I will repay you with treasures--"

"The only treasures we possess in Flanders are patience and labor,"
replied Conyncks, sternly. "Our ancestor has those words engraved upon
his brow," he said, pointing to the portrait of Van Claes.

Marguerite kissed her father and bade him good-bye, gave her last
directions to Josette and to Felicie, and started with Monsieur Conyncks
for Paris. The great-uncle was a widower with one child, a daughter
twelve years old, and he was possessed of an immense fortune. It was not
impossible that he would take a wife; consequently, the good people of
Douai believed that Mademoiselle Claes would marry her great-uncle. The
rumor of this marriage reached Pierquin, and brought him back in hot
haste to the House of Claes.

Great changes had taken place in the ideas of that clever speculator.
For the last two years society in Douai had been divided into hostile
camps. The nobility formed one circle, the bourgeoisie another; the
latter naturally inimical to the former. This sudden separation took
place, as a matter of fact, all over France, and divided the country
into two warring nations, whose jealous squabbles, always augmenting,
were among the chief reasons why the revolution of July, 1830,
was accepted in the provinces. Between these social camps, the
one ultra-monarchical, the other ultra-liberal, were a number of
functionaries of various kinds, admitted, according to their importance,
to one or the other of these circles, and who, at the moment of the fall
of the legitimate power, were neutral. At the beginning of the struggle
between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, the royalist "cafes" displayed
an unheard-of splendor, and eclipsed the liberal "cafes" so brilliantly
that these gastronomic fetes were said to have cost the lives of some
of their frequenters who,