here, Aunt Louise; and then, do you remember, you received the
confessions of my poor torn heart. Ah! I must say you are the only young
member of the family--you were the only one who did not make a long face
when I spoke of my love for that rogue. Mamma, however, had preached to
you, and you vaunted the advantages of an alliance with Courtalin, but
without conviction. I felt that you were at bottom on my side against
mamma, and it was so easily explained--mamma could not understand me,
whereas you! They think we little girls know nothing, and we know
everything. I knew that mamma had made a worldly marriage, which had,
however, turned out very well; and you, Aunt Louise, had married for
love. You must have battled to get the husband you wished, and you had
him, and you resolutely conquered your happiness. Yes, I knew all that;
I dared even to allude to those things of the past, and those memories
brought a smile to your lips and tears to your eyes. And to-day again,
Aunt Louise, there it is, the smile, and there are the tears."

Marceline interrupted her talk, affectionately threw herself on her Aunt
Louise's neck, and kissed her with all her heart. She wiped away the
tears with kisses, and only the smile remained. Yes, Aunt Louise
remembered that she had had hard work to get as husband a certain
handsome officer of the Royal Guard, who was there present at the scene,
in an old decorated frame, standing up with his helmet on his head in a
martial attitude, leaning on the hilt of his cavalry sabre.

He, too, had been modern, that conqueror of the Trocadero, when he
entered Madrid in 1822 on the staff of the Duke of Angoulême. And she,
too, old Aunt Louise, had been modern, very modern, the day when, from
a window of the Palace of the Tuileries, during a military parade, she
had murmured this phrase in her mother's ear: "Mamma, there is the one I
love."