troubles, but you never did love me."

"Yes, yes, she loves you, Nasie," cried Goriot; "she was saying so
only just now. We were talking about you, and she insisted that you
were beautiful, and that she herself was only pretty!"

"Pretty!" said the Countess. "She is as hard as a marble statue."

"And if I am?" cried Delphine, flushing up, "how have you treated me?
You would not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house
against me; you have never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip
by. And when did I come, as you were always doing, to drain our poor
father, a thousand francs at a time, till he is left as you see him
now? That is all your doing, sister! I myself have seen my father as
often as I could. I have not turned him out of the house, and then
come and fawned upon him when I wanted money. I did not so much as
know that he had spent those twelve thousand francs on me. I am
economical, as you know; and when papa has made me presents, it has
never been because I came and begged for them."

"You were better off than I. M. de Marsay was rich, as you have reason
to know. You always were as slippery as gold. Good-bye; I have neither
sister nor----"

"Oh! hush, hush, Nasie!" cried her father.

"Nobody else would repeat what everybody has ceased to believe. You
are an unnatural sister!" cried Delphine.

"Oh, children, children! hush! hush! or I will kill myself before your