towards me has induced you to shut your eyes to--Put yourself
in the place of Madame Dubreuil--to be told that the companion of your
darling daughter was--what I was--Ah, could any one blame such natural
indignation?"

Unfortunately Madame Georges could not find any satisfactory reply to
this question of Fleur-de-Marie's, who continued with much excitement:

"Soon will the degrading scene of yesterday be in everybody's mouth! I
fear not for myself, but who can tell how far it may affect the
reputation of Mlle. Clara? Who can answer for it that I may not have
tarnished her fair fame for ever? for did she not, in the face of the
assembled crowd, persist in calling me her friend--her sister? I ought
to have obeyed my first impulse, and resisted the affection which
attracted me towards Mlle. Dubreuil, and, at the risk of incurring her
dislike, have refused the friendship she offered me. But I forgot the
distance which separated me from her, and now, as you perceive, I am
suffering the just penalty; I am punished--oh, how cruelly punished! for
I have perhaps done an irreparable injury to one so virtuous and so
good."

"My child," said Madame Georges, after a brief silence, "you are wrong
to accuse yourself so cruelly. 'Tis true your past life has been
guilty--very highly so; but are we to reckon as nothing your having, by
the sincerity of your repentance, obtained the protection and favour of
our excellent cure? and was it not under his auspices and mine you were
introduced to Madame Dubreuil? and did not your own amiable qualities
inspire her with the attachment she so voluntarily professed for you?
was it not she herself who requested you to call Clara your sister? and,
finally, as I told her just now, for I neither wished nor ought to
conceal the whole truth from her, how could I, certain as I felt of your
sincere repentance--how could I, by divulging the past, render your
attempts to reinstate yourself more painful and difficult, perhaps
impossible, by throwing you, in despair of being again received by the
good and virtuous, back upon the scorn and derision of those who,
equally guilty, equally unfortunate as you have been, would not perhaps
like you have preserved the secret instinct of honour and virtue? The
disclosure made by the woman to-day is alike to be lamented and feared;
but could I, in anticipation of an almost impossible casualty, sacrifice
your present comfort and future repose?"

"Ah, madame, a convinc