It's all very well for a woman to have been beautiful, and to strive to keep so, but in reality there's only ruin left, and shame and disgust." She spoke these words in such a sharp, ferocious voice that each of them entered her mother's heart like a knife.

Tears rose to the eyes of the wretched woman, again stricken in her bleeding wound.

Ah! it was true, she remained without weapons against youth.

And all her anguish came from the consciousness that she was growing old, from the feeling that love was departing from her now, that like a fruit she had ripened and fallen from the tree.
"But Gerard's mother will never let him marry you," she said.
"He will prevail on her; that's his concern.

I've a dowry of two millions, and two millions can settle many things." "Do you now want to libel him, and say that he's marrying you for your money ?" "No, indeed! Gerard's a very nice and honest fellow.