Harkee, Balthazar, and thou good woman, his
wife--and thou too, pretty Christine--what have ye all to answer to the
reasonable plea of Jacques Colis?"
Balthazar, who, by the nature of his office, and by his general masculine
duties, had been so much accustomed to meet with harsh instances of the
public hatred, soon recovered his usual calm exterior, even though he felt
a father's pang and a father's just resentment at witnessing this open
injury to one so gentle and deserving as his child. But the blow had been
far heavier on Marguerite, the faithful and long-continued sharer of his
fortunes. The wife of Balthazar was past the prime of her days, but she
still retained the presence, and some of the personal beauty, which had
rendered her, in youth, a woman of extraordinary mien and carriage. When
the words which announced the slight to her daughter first fell on her
ears, she paled to the hue of the dead. For several minutes she stood
looking more like one that had taken a final departure from the interests
and emotions of life, than one that, in truth, was a prey to one of the
strongest passions the human breast can ever entertain, that of wounded
maternal affection.
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