"I must talk to you sincerely," she said. "You are young, I am not;
and my age makes it a duty for me not to yield to any impulse. We are
unfortunates, you are one of the happy; you will soon be rich and famous.
Is it wise to burden your life with a wife who is in my daughter's
position?"

With the exception of a few words, this was Phillis's answer. He
answered the mother as he had answered the daughter.

"It is not for you that I speak," said Madame Cormier. "I should not
permit myself to give you advice; it is in placing myself at the point of
view of my daughter that I, her mother, with the experience of my age,
should watch over her future. Is it certain that in the struggles of
life you will never suffer from this marriage, not because my daughter
will not make you happy--from this side I am easy--but because the
situation that fate has made for us will weigh on you and fetter you?
I know my daughter-her delicacy; her uneasy susceptibility, that of the
unfortunate; her pride, that of the irreproachable. It would be a wound
for her that would make happiness give way to unhappiness, for she could
not bear contempt."

"If that is in human nature, it is not in mine; I give you my word."

He explained how he meant to arrange their life, and when she understood
that she was to live with them, she clasped her hands and exclaimed

"Oh, my God, who hast taken my son, how good thou art to give me
another!"