“Let me see,” said the man. “It was lot number fourteen, purchased at eight o’clock this morning. We happened to be very short of vellum, and I gave out that new lot directly.” He opened a creaking door, and called out, “Pierre! Pierre! what was the number of the lot you put in last?”
“Number fourteen,” replied a deep voice within; and the door closed again, with dinning rattle of rope and weight.
“It is too late,” said the foreman, turning to Hyppolite. “It went in at eleven o’clock.”
“Went in? Went in where?” exclaimed Dubois, turning first to Hyppolite, and then to the foreman, with a look of haggard anxiety.
“Into the boiler,” replied Hyppolite, taking his uncle’s hand. “This is a gelatine manufactory. We boil down tons of old parchment every year.”
* * * * *
It was long before Dubois recovered from the shock he had received; but he did finally recover. He began to accumulate fresh bibliographical treasures around him, and many pleasant evenings were spent in those old apartments. But his former enthusiasm never returned. Any new discovery in the field of his research no longer excited a rapid flow of ardent words, but was merely indicated by a faint smile. He was always kindly and genial, and was only roused to an occasional word or look of bitterness when some circumstance happened to remind him of the treasure he had lost. “To think that what I had been hunting for all my life should be found only to be lost in a pot of gelatine!” he would exclaim, indignantly. Then he would fall into a silence which no one ventured to disturb. But, with a slight sigh, and a quiver of his gray locks, he would soon dismiss the subject from his mind, and change the conversation.
If he ever felt regret at having expended all the energies of his life among the dim shadows of the past, no one ever heard him express the feeling. And this was wise; for his habits were too firmly fixed to be changed. He lived with his dear old volumes as with friends. The monotony of his life was soothed by a daughter’s love, and cheered by the kind attentions of his gay young nephew. His uncommon talents and learning left no traces behind them, and his name passed away as do the pleasant clouds of twilight. Hyppolite’s constant love was rewarded by the heart and hand of Marcelline; and the two
who most reverenced the old man’s learning, and most
tenderly cherished the memory of his genial
character, lived to talk of them
often to each other, and to
teach them to their
descendants.
