By borrowing thou mightst some procure.




CHAPTER VII

Effect of Her Mother's Death


It is not to be wondered at that a girl under such tutelage should
abandon herself wholly, both mind and body, to a philosophy so
contrary in its principles and practices to that which her mother had
always endeavored to instill into her young mind. The father was
absent fighting for Heaven alone knew which faction into which France
was broken up, there were so many of them, and the mother and daughter
lived apart, the disparity in their sentiments making it impossible
for them to do otherwise. For this reason, Ninon was practically her
own mistress, and not interfered with because the husband and wife
could not agree upon any definite course of life for her to follow.
Ninon's heart, however, had not lost any of its natural instincts, and
she loved her mother sincerely, a trait in her which all Paris learned
with astonishment when her mother was taken down with what proved to
be a fatal illness.

Madame de l'Enclos, separated from both her husband and daughter, and
devoting her life to pious exercises, acquired against them the
violent prejudices natural in one who makes such a sacrifice upon the
altar of sentiment. The worldly life of her daughter gave birth in her
mind to an opinion which she deemed the natural consequence of it.