The youngest charmed others by his gaiety, the eldest by his melancholy; but the contrast, which was purely spiritual, was not at first observable.
"Ah, wife," whispered Michu in Marthe's ear, "how could one help devoting one's self to those young fellows ?" Marthe, who admired them as a wife and mother, nodded her head prettily and pressed her husband's hand.

The servants were allowed to kiss their new masters.
During their seven months' seclusion in the forest (which the young men had brought upon themselves) they had several times committed the imprudence of taking walks about their hiding-place, carefully guarded by Michu, his son, and Gothard.

During these walks, taken usually on starlit nights, Laurence, reuniting the thread of their past and present lives, felt the utter impossibility of choosing between the brothers.

A pure and equal love for each divided her heart.

She fancied indeed that she had two hearts.