him with an air of condescension. She was like young children, who
seem to say to their mother, "Make haste to kiss me, that I may go to
play." In short, Emilie vouchsafed to be fond of her parents. But
often, by those sudden whims, which seem inexplicable in young girls,
she kept aloof and scarcely ever appeared; she complained of having to
share her father's and mother's heart with too many people; she was
jealous of every one, even of her brothers and sisters. Then, after
creating a desert about her, the strange girl accused all nature of
her unreal solitude and her wilful griefs. Strong in the experience of
her twenty years, she blamed fate, because, not knowing that the
mainspring of happiness is in ourselves, she demanded it of the
circumstances of life. She would have fled to the ends of the earth to
escape a marriage such as those of her two sisters, and nevertheless
her heart was full of horrible jealousy at seeing them married, rich,
and happy. In short, she sometimes led her mother--who was as much a
victim to her vagaries as Monsieur de Fontaine--to suspect that she
had a touch of madness.

But such aberrations are quite inexplicable; nothing is commoner than
this unconfessed pride developed in the heart of young girls belonging
to families high in the social scale, and gifted by nature with great
beauty. They are almost all convinced that their mothers, now forty or
fifty years of age, can neither sympathize with their young souls, nor
conceive of their imaginings. They fancy that most mothers, jealous of
their girls, want to dress them in their own way with the premeditated
purpose of eclipsing them or robbing them of admiration. Hence, often,
secret tears and dumb revolt against supposed tyranny. In the midst of
these woes, which become very real though built on an imaginary basis,
they have also a mania for composing a scheme of life, while casting
for themselves a brilliant horoscope; their magic consists in taking