longed for independence. Thus it came to pass that they looked to
marriage as soon as they saw anything of life and were able to compare
a few ideas. Of their own tender graces and their personal value they
were absolutely ignorant. They were ignorant, too, of their own
innocence; how, then, could they know life? Without weapons to meet
misfortune, without experience to appreciate happiness, they found no
comfort in the maternal jail, all their joys were in each other. Their
tender confidences at night in whispers, or a few short sentences
exchanged if their mother left them for a moment, contained more ideas
than the words themselves expressed. Often a glance, concealed from
other eyes, by which they conveyed to each other their emotions, was
like a poem of bitter melancholy. The sight of a cloudless sky, the
fragrance of flowers, a turn in the garden, arm in arm,--these were
their joys. The finishing of a piece of embroidery was to them a
source of enjoyment.

Their mother's social circle, far from opening resources to their
hearts or stimulating their minds, only darkened their ideas and
depressed them; it was made up of rigid old women, withered and
graceless, whose conversation turned on the differences which
distinguished various preachers and confessors, on their own petty
indispositions, on religious events insignificant even to the
"Quotidienne" or "l'Ami de la Religion." As for the men who appeared
in the Comtesse de Granville's salon, they extinguished any possible
torch of love, so cold and sadly resigned were their faces. They were
all of an age when mankind is sulky and fretful, and natural
sensibilities are chiefly exercised at table and on the things
relating to personal comfort. Religious egotism had long dried up
those hearts devoted to narrow duties and entrenched behind pious
practices. Silent games of cards occupied the whole evening, and the