had already won from my employers,
of whom, strangely enough, she spoke freely and familiarly, as though
she had known them.

The whole tone of these letters--and I read them over and over--calmed
and reassured me. Full of personal details, they were never selfish in
its unpleasant sense. They often spoke of poverty, but rather as a thing
to be baffled by good-humored contrivance or rendered endurable by
habit than as matter for complaint and bewailment. Little dashes of
light-heartedness would now and then break the dark sombreness of
the picture, and show how her spirit was yet alive to life and its
enjoyments. Above all, there was no croaking, no foreboding. She had
lived through some years of trial and sorrow, and if the future had
others as gloomy in store, it was time enough when they came to meet
their exigencies.

What a blessing was it to me to get these at such a time! I no longer
felt myself alone and isolated in the world. There was, I now knew, a
bank of affection at my disposal at which I could draw at will; and
what an object for my imitation was that fine courage of hers, that took
defeats as mere passing shadows, and was satisfied to fight on to the
end, ever hopeful and ever brave.

How I would have liked to return to Madame Cleremont, and read her some
passages of these letters, and said, "And this is the woman you seek to
dethrone, and whose place you would fill! This is she whose rival you
aspire to be. What think you of the contest now? Which of you should
prove the winner? Is it with a nature like this you would like to
measure yourself?"

How I would have liked to have dared her to such a combat, and boldly
declared that I would make my father himself the umpire as to the
worthier. As to her hate or her vengeance, she had as much as promised
me both, but I defied them; and I believed I even consulted my safety by
open defiance. As I thus stimulated myself with passionate counsels, and
burned with eagerness for the moment I might avow them, I flung open my
window for fresh air, for my excitement had risen to actual fever.

It was very dark without Night had set in about two hours, but no
stars had yet shone out, and a thick impenetrable blackness pervaded
everywhere. Some peasants were shovelling the snow in the court beneath,
making a track from the gate to the house-door, and here and there a
dimly burning lantern attached to a pole would show where the work
was being carried out. As it wa