y invented.

"The fellow is fine-looking," thought Joseph, admiring with a painter's
eye the eager face, the air of strength, and the intellectual gray eyes
which Max had inherited from his father, the noble. "My uncle must be
a fearful bore, and that handsome girl takes her compensations. It is a
triangular household; I see that."

At this instant, Baruch and Francois entered.

"Have you been to see the tower of Issoudun?" Flore asked Joseph. "No?
then if you would like to take a little walk before dinner, which will
not be served for an hour, we will show you the great curiosity of the
town."

"Gladly," said the artist, quite incapable of seeing the slightest
impropriety in so doing.

While Flore went to put on her bonnet, gloves, and cashmere shawl,
Joseph suddenly jumped up, as if an enchanter had touched him with his
wand, to look at the pictures.

"Ah! you have pictures, indeed, uncle!" he said, examining the one that
had caught his eye.

"Yes," answered the old man. "They came to us from the Descoings, who
bought them during the Revolution, when the convents and churches in
Berry were dismantled."

Joseph was not listening; he was lost in admiration of the pictures.

"Magnificent!" he cried. "Oh! what painting! that fellow didn't spoil
his canvas. Dear, dear! better and better, as it is at Nicolet's--"

"There are seven or eight very large ones up in the garret, which were
kept on account of the frames," said Gilet.

"Let me see them!" cried the artist; and Max took him upstairs.

Joseph came down wildly enthusiastic. Max whispered a word to the
Rabouilleuse, who took the old man into the embrasure of a window, where
Joseph heard her say in a low voice, but still so that he could hear the
words:--

"Your nephew is a painter; you don't care for those pictures; be kind,
and give them to him."

"It seems," said Jean-Jacques, leaning on Flore's arm to reach the place
were Joseph was standing in ecstasy before an Albano, "--it seems that
you are a painter--"

"Only a 'rapin,'" said Joseph.

"What may that be?" asked Flore.

"A beginner," replied Joseph.

"Well," continued Jean-Jacques, "if these pictures can be of any use to
you in your business, I give them to you,--but without the frames. Oh!
the frames are gilt, and besides, they are very funny; I will put--"

"Well done, uncle!" cried Joseph, enchanted; "I'll make you copies of
the same dimensions, which you can put into the frames."

"B