er the
compliment of suggesting that he might be the man. Pierquin, however,
found so many good reasons to reject the suggested matches as unworthy
of Marguerite's position, that the confabulators glanced at each
other and smiled, and took malicious pleasure in prolonging this truly
provincial method of annoyance. Pierquin had already decided that Madame
Claes's death would have a favorable effect upon his suit, and he began
mentally to cut up the body in his own interests.

"That good woman," he said to himself as he went home to bed, "was as
proud as a peacock; she would never gave given me her daughter. Hey,
hey! why couldn't I manage matters now so as to marry the girl? Pere
Claes is drunk on carbon, and takes no care of his children. If, after
convincing Marguerite that she must marry to save the property of her
brothers and sister, I were to ask him for his daughter, he will be glad
to get rid of a girl who is likely to thwart him."

He went to sleep anticipating the charms of the marriage contract, and
reflecting on the advantages of the step and the guarantees afforded for
his happiness in the person he proposed to marry. In all the provinces
there was certainly not a better brought-up or more delicately lovely
young girl than Mademoiselle Claes. Her modesty, her grace, were like
those of the pretty flower Emmanuel had feared to name lest he
should betray the secret of his heart. Her sentiments were lofty, her
principles religious, she would undoubtedly make him a faithful wife:
moreover, she not only flattered the vanity which influences every man
more or less in the choice of a wife, but she gratified his pride by
the high consideration which her family, doubly ennobled, enjoyed in
Flanders,--a consideration which her husband of course would share.

The next day Pierquin extracted from his strong-box several
thousand-franc notes, which he offered with great friendliness to
Balthazar, so as to relieve him of pecuniary annoyance in the midst
of his grief. Touched by this delicate attention, Balthazar would, he
thought, praise his goodness and his personal qualities to Marguerite.
In this he was mistaken. Monsieur Claes and his daughter thought it was
a very natural action, and their sorrow was too absorbing to let them
even think of the lawyer.

Balthazar's despair was indeed so great that persons who were disposed
to blame his conduct could not do otherwise than forgive him,--less
on account of the Science