“The fellow is fine-looking,” thought Joseph, admiring with a painter’s eye the eager face, the air of strength, and the intellectual gray eyes which Max had inherited from his father, the noble.  “My uncle must be a fearful bore, and that handsome girl takes her compensations.  It is a triangular household; I see that.”

At this instant, Baruch and Francois entered.

“Have you been to see the tower of Issoudun?” Flore asked Joseph.  “No? then if you would like to take a little walk before dinner, which will not be served for an hour, we will show you the great curiosity of the town.”

“Gladly,” said the artist, quite incapable of seeing the slightest impropriety in so doing.

While Flore went to put on her bonnet, gloves, and cashmere shawl, Joseph suddenly jumped up, as if an enchanter had touched him with his wand, to look at the pictures.

“Ah! you have pictures, indeed, uncle!” he said, examining the one that had caught his eye.

“Yes,” answered the old man.  “They came to us from the Descoings, who bought them during the Revolution, when the convents and churches in Berry were dismantled.”

Joseph was not listening; he was lost in admiration of the pictures.

“Magnificent!” he cried.  “Oh! what painting! that fellow didn’t spoil his canvas.  Dear, dear! better and better, as it is at Nicolet’s—­”

“There are seven or eight very large ones up in the garret, which were kept on account of the frames,” said Gilet.

“Let me see them!” cried the artist; and Max took him upstairs.

Joseph came down wildly enthusiastic.  Max whispered a word to the Rabouilleuse, who took the old man into the embrasure of a window, where Joseph heard her say in a low voice, but still so that he could hear the words:—­

“Your nephew is a painter; you don’t care for those pictures; be kind, and give them to him.”

“It seems,” said Jean-Jacques, leaning on Flore’s arm to reach the place were Joseph was standing in ecstasy before an Albano, “—­it seems that you are a painter—­”

“Only a ‘rapin,’” said Joseph.

“What may that be?” asked Flore.

“A beginner,” replied Joseph.

“Well,” continued Jean-Jacques, “if these pictures can be of any use to you in your business, I give them to you,—­but without the frames.  Oh! the frames are gilt, and besides, they are very funny; I will put—­”

“Well done, uncle!” cried Joseph, enchanted; “I’ll make you copies of the same dimensions, which you can put into the frames.”

“But that will take your time, and you will want canvas and colors,” said Flore.  “You will have to spend money.  Come, Pere Rouget, offer your nephew a hundred francs for each copy; here are twenty-seven pictures, and I think there are eleven very big ones in the garret which ought to cost double,—­call the whole four thousand francs.  Oh, yes,” she went on, turning to Joseph, “your uncle can