They were poor,--all those good women,--and they were always cheerful." "The nuns! _ah, mon Dieu!_" cried Duprez.

"The darlings know not the taste of joy--they speak of what they cannot understand! How should they know what it is to be happy or unhappy, when they bar their great convent doors against the very name of love!" She looked at him, and her color rose.
"You always talk of _love_," she said, half reproachfully, "as if it were so common a thing! You know it is sacred--why will you speak as if it were all a jest ?" A strange emotion of admiring tenderness stirred Pierre's heart--he was very impulsive and impressionable.
"Forgive me!" he murmured penitently.

Then he added suddenly, "You should have lived ages ago, _ma belle_,--the world of to-day will not suit you! You will be made very sorrowful in it, I assure you,--it is not a place for good women!" She laughed.

"You are morose," she said.

"That is not like you! No one is good,--we all live to try and make ourselves better." "What highly moral converse is going on here ?" inquired Lorimer, strolling leisurely up to them.