Madame de la Tour returned to her cottage, her heart torn with grief,
and filled with all the bitterness of disappointment. When she
arrived, she threw her aunt's letter on the table, and exclaimed to her
friend,--"There is the fruit of eleven years of patient expectation!"
Madame de la Tour being the only person in the little circle who could
read, she again took up the letter, and read it aloud. Scarcely had
she finished, when Margaret exclaimed, "What have we to do with your
relations? Has God then forsaken us? He only is our father! Have we not
hitherto been happy? Why then this regret? You have no courage."
Seeing Madame de la Tour in tears, she threw herself upon her neck,
and pressing her in her arms,--"My dear friend!" cried she, "my dear
friend!"--but her emotion choked her utterance. At this sight Virginia
burst into tears, and pressed her mother's and Margaret's hand
alternately to her lips and heart; while Paul, his eyes inflamed with
anger, cried, clasped his hands together, and stamped his foot, not
knowing whom to blame for this scene of misery. The noise soon brought
Domingo and Mary to the spot, and the little habitation resounded with
cries of distress,--"Ah, madame!--My good mistress!--My dear mother!--Do
not weep!" These tender proofs of affections at length dispelled the
grief of Madame de la Tour. She took Paul and Virginia in her arms, and,
embracing them, said, "You are the cause of my affliction, my children,
but you are also my only source of delight! Yes, my dear children,
misfortune has reached me, but only from a distance: here, I am
surrounded with happiness." Paul and Virginia did not understand this
reflection; but, when they saw that she was calm, they smiled, and
continued to caress her. Tranquillity was thus restored in this happy
family, and all that had passed was but a storm in the midst of fine
weather, which disturbs the serenity of the atmosphere but for a short
time, and then passes away.