But should I not indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you?
When I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure that you shall not see me.
This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place.

The happy girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or condemn her heart and her actions,--a solemn moment in the life of any woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished.

Every one, except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of innocence.

No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the Julies, whose souls like flowing cups o'erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure.
Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet.

Let us say frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief upon her father and her mother.