Mme Lerat shook her head.

No, no, one never could have foreseen it! And she began talking in her turn, assuming a serious air as she did so and calling Nana "daughter." Wasn't she a second mother to her since the first had gone to rejoin Papa and Grandmamma?
Nana was greatly softened and on the verge of tears.

But Mme Lerat declared that the past was the past--oh yes, to be sure, a dirty past with things in it which it was as well not to stir up every day.

She had left off seeing her niece for a long time because among the family she was accused of ruining herself along with the little thing.

Good God, as though that were possible! She didn't ask for confidences; she believed that Nana had always lived decently, and now it was enough for her to have found her again in a fine position and to observe her kind feelings toward her son.