was the master by whose will it must be
guided; he was responsible to God only. Besides, could she reproach him
for the use he now made of his fortune, after the disinterestedness he
had shown to her for many happy years? Was she to judge his purposes?
And yet her conscience, in keeping with the spirit of the law, told
her that parents were the depositaries and guardians of property, and
possessed no right to alienate the material welfare of the children. To
escape replying to such stern questions she preferred to shut her eyes,
like one who refuses to see the abyss into whose depths he knows he is
about to fall.

For more than six months her husband had given her no money for the
household expenses. She sold secretly, in Paris, the handsome diamond
ornaments her brother had given her on her marriage, and placed
the family on a footing of the strictest economy. She sent away the
governess of her children, and even the nurse of little Jean. Formerly
the luxury of carriages and horses was unknown among the burgher
families, so simple were they in their habits, so proud in their
feelings; no provision for that modern innovation had therefore been
made at the House of Claes, and Balthazar was obliged to have his stable
and coach-house in a building opposite to his own house: his present
occupations allowed him no time to superintend that portion of his
establishment, which belongs exclusively to men. Madame Claes suppressed
the whole expense of equipages and servants, which her present isolation
from the world rendered unnecessary, and she did so without pretending
to conceal the retrenchment under any pretext. So far, facts had
contradicted her assertions, and silence for the future was more
becoming: indeed the change in the family mode of living called for no
explanation in a country where, as in Flanders, any one who lives up to
his income is considered a madman.

And yet, as her eldest daughter, Marguerite, approached her sixteenth
birthday, Madame Claes longed to procure for her a good marriage, and to
place her in society in a manner suitable to a daughter of the Molinas,
the Van Ostron-Temnincks, and the Casa-Reals. A few days before the
one on which this story opens, the money derived from the sale of the
diamonds had been exhausted. On the very day, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, as Madame Claes was taking her children to vespers, she met
Pierquin, who was on his way to see her, and who turned and accompanied