of angles; every room had a particular inclination; the gable had
tilted towards the garden, after the manner of a leaning tower, and one
of the former proprietors had buttressed the building from that side with
a great strut of wood, like the derrick of a crane. Altogether, it had
many marks of ruin; it was a house for the rats to desert; and nothing
but its excellent brightness--the window-glass polished and shining, the
paint well scoured, the brasses radiant, the very prop all wreathed about
with climbing flowers--nothing but its air of a well-tended, smiling
veteran, sitting, crutch and all, in the sunny corner of a garden, marked
it as a house for comfortable people to inhabit. In poor or idle
management it would soon have hurried into the blackguard stages of
decay. As it was, the whole family loved it, and the Doctor was never
better inspired than when he narrated its imaginary story and drew the
character of its successive masters, from the Hebrew merchant who had
re-edified its walls after the sack of the town, and past the mysterious
engraver of the runes, down to the long-headed, dirty-handed boor from
whom he had himself acquired it at a ruinous expense. As for any alarm
about its security, the idea had never presented itself. What had stood
four centuries might well endure a little longer.

Indeed, in this particular winter, after the finding and losing of the
treasure, the Desprez had an anxiety of a very different order, and one
which lay nearer their hearts. Jean-Marie was plainly not himself. He had
fits of hectic activity, when he made unusual exertions to please, spoke
more and faster, and redoubled in attention to his lessons. But these
were interrupted by spells of melancholia and brooding silence, when the
boy was little better than unbearable.

"Silence," the Doctor moralised--"you see, Anastasie, what comes of
silence. Had the boy properly unbosomed himself, the little
disappointment about the treasure, the little annoyance about Casimir's
incivility, would long ago have been forgotten. As it is, they prey upon
him like a disease. He loses flesh, his appetite is variable and, on the
whole, impaired. I keep him on the strictest regimen, I exhibit the most
powerful tonics; both in vain."

"Don't you think you drug him too much?" asked madame, with an
irrepressible shudder.

"Drug?" cried the Doctor; "I drug? Anastasie, you are mad!"

Time went on, and the boy's health still slowly declined. Th