at I shall
have from you as a girl. Your husband--for Georges is that now--"

At these words I shuddered slightly, and by a singular freak of my brain
pictured to myself Monsieur Georges--Georges--my husband--in a cotton
night cap and a dressing-gown. The vision flashed across my mind in the
midst of the storm. I saw him just as plainly as if he had been there. It
was dreadful. The nightcap came over his forehead, down to his eyebrows,
and he said to me, pressing my hand; "At last, Valentine; you are mine;
do you love me? oh! tell me, do you love me?" And as his head moved as he
uttered these words, the horrible tuft at the end of his nightcap waggled
as an accompaniment.

"No," I said to myself, "it is impossible for my husband to appear in
such a fashion; let me banish this image--and yet my father wears the
hideous things, and my brother, who is quite young, has them already. Men
wear them at all ages, unless though--" It is frightful to relate, but
Georges now appeared to me with a red-and-green bandanna handkerchief
tied round his head. I would have given ten years of my life to be two
hours older, and hurriedly passed my hand across my eyes to drive away
these diabolical visions.

However, mamma, who had been still speaking all the time, attributing
this movement to the emotion caused by her words, said, with great
sweetness:

"Do not be alarmed, my dear Valentine; perhaps I am painting the picture
in too gloomy colors; but my experience and my love render this duty
incumbent upon me."

I have never heard mamma express herself so fluently. I was all the more
surprised as, not having heard a word of what she had already said, this
sentence seemed suddenly sprung upon me. Not knowing what to answer, I
threw myself into the arms of mamma, who, after a minute or so, put me
away gently, saying, "You are suffocating me, dear."

She wiped her eyes with her little cambric handkerchief, which was damp,
and said, smilingly:

"Now that I have told you what my conscience imposed on me, I am strong.
See, dear, I think that I can smile. Your husband, my dear child, is a
man full of delicacy. Have confidence; accept all without misgiving."

Mamma kissed me on the forehead, which finished off her sentence, and
added:

"Now, dear one, I have fulfilled a duty I regarded as sacred. Come here
and let me take your wreath off."

"By this time," I thought, "they have noticed that I have left the
drawing-room. They are sayin