has no need to blush for an uncle like that, hey? Clotilde, I have
syrup, if you would like some. And you, Felicite, my dear, I know that
you prefer anisette. There is everything here, I tell you, there is
everything here!"

He waved his arm as if to take possession of the comforts he enjoyed,
now that from an old sinner he had become a hermit, while Felicite,
whom he had disturbed a moment before by the enumeration of his
riches, did not take her eyes from his face, waiting to interrupt him.

"Thank you, Macquart, we will take nothing; we are in a hurry. Where
is Charles?"

"Charles? Very good, presently! I understand, papa has come to see his
boy. But that is not going to prevent you taking a glass."

And as they positively refused he became offended, and said, with his
malicious laugh:

"Charles is not here; he is at the asylum with the old woman."

Then, taking Maxime to the end of the terrace, he pointed out to him
the great white buildings, whose inner gardens resembled prison yards.

"Look, nephew, you see those three trees in front of you? Well, beyond
the one to the left, there is a fountain in a court. Follow the ground
floor, and the fifth window to the right is Aunt Dide's. And that is
where the boy is. Yes, I took him there a little while ago."

This was an indulgence of the directors. In the twenty years that she