tep in and eat up all that Balthazar had not squandered.
Marguerite's coldness brought Pierquin to a state of almost hostile
indifference. To give himself an appearance in the eyes of the world of
having renounced her hand, he frequently remarked of the Claes family in
a tone of compassion:--

"Those poor people are ruined; I have done my best to save them. Well,
it can't be helped; Mademoiselle Claes refused to employ the legal means
which might have rescued them from poverty."

Emmanuel de Solis, who was now principal of the college-school in Douai,
thanks to the influence of his uncle and to his own merits which made
him worthy of the post, came every evening to see the two young girls,
who called the old duenna into the parlor as soon as their father had
gone to bed. Emmanuel's gentle rap at the street-door was never missing.
For the last three months, encouraged by the gracious, though mute
gratitude with which Marguerite now accepted his attentions, he became
at his ease, and was seen for what he was. The brightness of his pure
spirit shone like a flawless diamond; Marguerite learned to understand
its strength and its constancy when she saw how inexhaustible was the
source from which it came. She loved to watch the unfolding, one by one,
of the blossoms of his heart, whose perfume she had already breathed.
Each day Emmanuel realized some one of Marguerite's hopes, and illumined
the enchanted regions of love with new lights that chased away the
clouds and brought to view the serene heavens, giving color to the
fruitful riches hidden away in the shadow of their lives. More at his
ease, the young man could display the seductive qualities of his heart
until now discreetly hidden, the expansive gaiety of his age, the
simplicity which comes of a life of study, the treasures of a delicate
mind that life has not adulterated, the innocent joyousness which goes
so well with loving youth. His soul and Marguerite's understood each
other better; they went together to the depths of their hearts and
found in each the same thoughts,--pearls of equal lustre, sweet fresh
harmonies like those the legends tell of beneath the waves, which
fascinate the divers. They made themselves known to one another by an
interchange of thought, a reciprocal introspection which bore the signs,
in both, of exquisite sensibility. It was done without false shame, but
not without mutual coquetry. The two hours which Emmanuel spent with the
sisters and