grandmother, from whom the mother derived her pension, and whose estate
the child was to inherit. The separation from her mother, gradually
effected, was the great sorrow of her childhood. She revolted from it
sometimes openly, sometimes in secret; and the project of escaping and
joining her mother in Paris, where, with her half-sister Caroline,
they would support themselves by needle-work, was soon formed and
long cherished. For the expenses of this intended journey, the child
carefully gathered and kept her little treasures, a coral comb, a ring
with a tiny brilliant, etc., etc. In contemplating these, she consoled
many a heartache; as who is there of us who has not often effectually
beguiled _ennui_ and privation by dreams of joys that never were to have
any other reality? The mother seems to have entered into this plan only
for the moment; it soon escaped her remembrance altogether, and the
little girl waited and waited to be sent for, till finally the whole
vision faded into a dream.

Deschartres, the tutor of Maurice, and of Hippolyte, his illegitimate
son, became also the instructor of the little Aurore. With all her
passion for out-door life, she felt always, she tells us, an invincible
necessity of mental cultivation, and perpetually astonished those
who had charge of her by her ardor alike in work and in play. Her
grandmother soon found that the child was never ill, so long as
sufficient freedom of exercise was permitted; so she was soon allowed to
run at will, dividing her time pretty equally between the study and the
fields. Thus she grew in mind and body from seven to twelve, promising
to be tall and handsome, though not in after-years fulfilling this
promise; for of her stature she tells us that it did not exceed that of
her mother, whom she calls a _petite femme_,--and of her appearance
she simply says that in her youth "with eyes, hair, and a robust
organization," she was neither handsome nor ugly. At the age of twelve,