those ten days Henriette passed through all the contentions a
young woman must endure to establish her independence. You, who for your
happiness have the best of mothers, can scarcely comprehend such trials.
To gain a true idea of the struggle between that cold, calculating,
ambitious woman and a daughter abounding in the tender natural kindness
that never faileth, you must imagine a lily, to which my heart has
always compared her, bruised beneath the polished wheels of a steel car.
That mother had nothing in common with her daughter; she was unable
even to imagine the real difficulties which hindered her from taking
advantage of the Restoration and forced her to continue a life of
solitude. Though families bury their internal dissensions with the
utmost care, enter behind the scenes, and you will find in nearly all
of them deep, incurable wounds, which lessen the natural affections.
Sometimes these wounds are given by passions real and most affecting,
rendered eternal by the dignity of those who feel them; sometimes by
latent hatreds which slowly freeze the heart and dry all tears when the
hour of parting comes. Tortured yesterday and to-day, wounded by all,
even by the suffering children who were guiltless of the ills they
endured, how could that poor soul fail to love the one human being who
did not strike her, who would fain have built a wall of defence around
her to guard her from storms, from harsh contacts and cruel blows?
Though I suffered from a knowledge of these debates, there were moments
when I was happy in the sense that she rested upon my heart; for she
told me of these new troubles. Day by day I learned more fully the
meaning of her words,--"Love me as my aunt loved me."

"Have you no ambition?" the duchess said to me at dinner, with a stern
air.

"Madame," I replied, giving her a serious look, "I have enough in me to
conquer the world; but I am only twenty-one, and I am all alone."

She looked at her daughter with some astonishment. Evidently she
believed that Henriette had crushed my ambition in order to keep me
near her. The visit of Madame de Lenoncourt was a period of unrelieved
constraint. The countess begged me to be cautious; she was frightened
by the least kind word; to please her I wore the harness of deceit. The
great Thursday came; it was a day of wearisome ceremonial,--one of
those stiff days which lovers hate, when their chair is no longer in
its place, and the mistress of the house canno