g, of whom the peasants stood in the greatest awe,
were always courteous and even cordial in their salutations, while the
noble dames smiled graciously upon him. Proud and haughty as they were,
they evidently looked upon his father and himself as their equals, in
spite of the coarse garments that they wore. The realization of these
facts effected a great change in Norbert. He was the equal of all these
people, and yet how great a gulf separated him from them. While he and
his father tramped to Mass in heavy shoes, the others drove up in
their carriages with powdered footmen to open the doors. Why was this
extraordinary difference? He knew enough of the value of crops and land
to know that his father was as wealthy as any of these gentlemen. The
laborers on the farm said that his father was a miser, and the villagers
asserted that he got up at night and gazed with rapture upon the
treasure that was hidden away from men's eyes.

"Norbert is an unhappy lad," they would say. "He who ought to be able to
command all the pleasures of life is worse off than our own children."

He also recollected that one day, as his father was talking to the
Marquis de Laurebourg, an old lady, who was doubtless the Marchioness,
had said, "Poor boy! he was so early deprived of a mother's care!" What
did that mean unless it was a reflection upon the arbitrary behavior of
his father? Norbert saw that these people always had their children with
them, and the sight of this filled him with jealousy, and brought tears
of anguish to his eyes. Sometimes, as he trudged wearily behind his yoke
of oxen, goad in hand, he would see some of these young scions of the
aristocracy canter by on horseback, and the friendly wave of the hand
with which they greeted him almost appeared to his jaundiced mind a
premeditated insult. What could they find to do in Paris, to which they
all took wing at the first breath of winter? This was a question which
he found himself utterly unable to solve. To drink to intoxication
offered no charms to him, and yet this was the only pleasure which the
villagers seemed to enjoy. Those young men must have some higher class
of entertainment, but in what could it consist? Norbert could hardly
read a line without spelling every word; but these new thoughts running
through his mind caused him to study, so as to improve his education.
His father had often told him that he did not like lads who where always
poring over books; and so Norbert