In fact, a box of shagreen leather, much like a miniature, was suspended from the ribbon. The old man took hold of this box, and looked at it for some time without opening, with the air of pleasure, eagerness, and anger of a poor starving fellow who sees a splendid dinner, of which he will have no share, carried past under his nose. "It is evidently a portrait, and I am up to that sort of thing. It is worn tenderly on the heart,--what asses they are! Some abominable wench, who will probably make me shudder; for young men have such bad tastes now-a-days." "Let us look, father," the old maid said. The box opened by pressing a spring, but they only found in it a carefully folded-up paper. "_From the same to the same_" said M. Gillenormand, bursting into a laugh. "I know what it is,--a billet-doux!" "Indeed! let us read it," said the aunt; and she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as follows,-- "_For my son_. The Emperor made me a Baron on the field of Waterloo, and as the Restoration contests this title which I purchased with my blood, my son will assume it and wear it; of course he will be worthy of it." What the father and daughter felt, it is not possible to describe; but they were chilled as if by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a syllable. M. Gillenormand merely said in a low voice, and as if speaking to himself, "It is that trooper's handwriting." The aunt examined the slip of paper, turned it about in all directions, and then placed it again in the box. At the same instant a small square packet wrapped up in blue paper fell from a pocket of the great-coat. Mlle. Gillenormand picked it up and opened the blue paper. It contained Marius's one hundred cards, and she passed one to M. Gillenormand, who read, "Baron Marius Pontmercy." The old man rang, and Nicolette came in. M. Gillenormand took the ribbon, the box, and the coat, threw them on the ground in the middle of the room, and said,-- "Remove that rubbish." A long hour passed in the deepest silence; the old man and the old maid were sitting back to back and thinking, probably both of the same things. At the end of this hour, Mlle. Gillenormand said,--"Very pretty!" A few minutes after, Marius came in; even before he crossed the threshold he perceived his grandfather holding one of his cards in his hand. On seeing Marius he exclaimed, with his air of bourgeois and grimacing superiority, which had something crushing about it,-- "Stay! stay! stay! stay! stay! You are a Baron at present; I must congratulate you. What does this mean?" Marius blushed slightly, and answered,-- "It means that I am my father's son." M. Gillenormand left off laughing, and said harshly, "I am your father."