firmness, hidden at present under an
apparent calmness and docility. Without being sad or melancholy, she
seemed to have little natural enjoyment. Reflectiveness, order, a
sense of duty, the three chief expressions of Flemish nature, were the
characteristics of a face that seemed cold at first sight, but to which
the eye was recalled by a certain grace of outline and a placid pride
which seemed the pledges of domestic happiness. By one of those freaks
which physiologists have not yet explained, she bore no likeness to
either father or mother, but was the living image of her maternal
great-grandmother, a Conyncks of Bruges, whose portrait, religiously
preserved, bore witness to the resemblance.

The supper gave some life to the ball. If the military disasters forbade
the delights of dancing, every one felt that they need not exclude the
pleasures of the table. The true patriots, however, retired early; only
the more indifferent remained, together with a few card players and the
intimate friends of the family. Little by little the brilliantly lighted
house, to which all the notabilities of Douai had flocked, sank into
silence, and by one o'clock in the morning the great gallery was
deserted, the lights were extinguished in one salon after another,
and the court-yard, lately so bustling and brilliant, grew dark and
gloomy,--prophetic image of the future that lay before the family. When
the Claes returned to their own appartement, Balthazar gave his wife the
letter he had received from the Polish officer: Josephine returned it
with a mournful gesture; she foresaw the coming doom.

From that day forth, Balthazar made no attempt to disguise the weariness
and the depression that assailed him. In the mornings, after the family
breakfast, he played for awhile in the parlor with little Jean, and
talked to his daughters, who were busy with their sewing, or embroidery
or lace-work; but he soon wearied of the play and of the talk, and
seemed at last to get through with them as a duty. When his wife came
down again after dressing, she always found him sitting in an easy-chair
looking blankly at Marguerite and Felicie, quite undisturbed by the
rattle of their bobbins. When the newspaper was brought in, he read it
slowly like a retired merchant at a loss how to kill the time. Then he
would get up, look at the sky through the window panes, go back to his
chair and mend the fire drearily, as though he were deprived of all
consciousness