Clotilde made no answer, as if her thoughts were a hundred leagues away from what her uncle was saying. And he did not speak again, but taking his scissors after he had read the article, he cut it out and pasted it on a sheet of paper, on which he made some marginal notes in his large, irregular handwriting. Then he went back to the press to classify this new document in it. But he was obliged to take a chair, the shelf being so high that he could not reach it notwithstanding his tall stature. On this high shelf a whole series of enormous bundles of papers were arranged in order, methodically classified. Here were papers of all sorts: sheets of manuscript, documents on stamped paper, articles cut out of newspapers, arranged in envelopes of strong blue paper, each of which bore on the outside a name written in large characters. One felt that these documents were tenderly kept in view, taken out continually, and carefully replaced; for of the whole press, this corner was the only one kept in order. When Pascal, mounted on the chair, had found the package he was looking for, one of the bulkiest of the envelopes, on which was written the name “Saccard,” he added to it the new document, and then replaced the whole under its corresponding alphabetical letter. A moment later he had forgotten the subject, and was complacently straightening a pile of papers that were falling down. And when he at last jumped down off the chair, he said: “When you are arranging the press, Clotilde, don’t touch the packages at the top; do you hear?” “Very well, master,” she responded, for the third time, docilely. He laughed again, with the gaiety that was natural to him. “That is forbidden.” “I know it, master.” And he closed the press with a vigorous turn of the key, which he then threw into a drawer of his writing table. The young girl was sufficiently acquainted with his researches to keep his manuscripts in some degree of order; and he gladly employed her as his secretary; he made her copy his notes when some _confrère_ and friend, like Dr. Ramond asked him to send him some document. But she was not a _savante_; he simply forbade her to read what he deemed it useless that she should know. At last, perceiving her so completely absorbed in her work, his attention was aroused. “What is the matter with you, that you don’t open your lips?” he said. “Are you so taken up with the copying of those flowers that you can’t speak?”