the ways of life of their aunt Clapart. The family intercourse was
restricted to the sending of notes of "faire part" on the occasion of
deaths and marriages, and cards at the New Year. The proud Madame
Clapart would never have brought herself to seek them were it not for
Oscar's interests, and because of her friendship for Moreau, the only
person who had been faithful to her in misfortune. She had never
annoyed old Cardot by her visits, or her importunities, but she held
to him as to a hope, and always went to see him once every three
months and talked to him of Oscar, the nephew of the late respectable
Madame Cardot; and she took the boy to call upon him three times
during each vacation. At each of these visits the old gentleman had
given Oscar a dinner at the Cadran-Bleu, taking him, afterwards, to
the Gaiete, and returning him safely to the rue de la Cerisaie. On one
occasion, having given the boy an entirely new suit of clothes, he
added the silver cup and fork and spoon required for his school
outfit.

Oscar's mother endeavored to impress the old gentleman with the idea
that his nephew cherished him, and she constantly referred to the cup
and the fork and spoon and to the beautiful suit of clothes, though
nothing was then left of the latter but the waistcoat. But such little
arts did Oscar more harm than good when practised on so sly an old fox
as uncle Cardot. The latter had never much liked his departed wife, a
tall, spare, red-haired woman; he was also aware of the circumstances
of the late Husson's marriage with Oscar's mother, and without in the
least condemning her, he knew very well that Oscar was a posthumous
child. His nephew, therefore, seemed to him to have no claims on the
Cardot family. But Madame Clapart, like all women who concentrate
their whole being into the sentiment of motherhood, did not put
herself in Cardot's place and see the matter from his point of view;