Julies, whose souls like flowing cups o’erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure.  Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet.  Let us say frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief upon her father and her mother.  But what tumultuous heavings were within her breast! no wonder that a mother guessed them.

On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay took Madame Mignon about mid-day to a seat in the sun among the flowers.  The blind woman turned her wan and blighted face toward the ocean; she inhaled the odors of the sea and took the hand of her daughter who remained beside her.  The mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the important question; for she comprehended the girl’s love and recognized, as the pretended Canalis had done, that Modeste was exceptional in nature.

“God grant that your father return in time!  If he delays much longer he will find none but you to love him.  Modeste, promise me once more never to leave him,” she said in a fond maternal tone.

Modeste lifted her mother’s hands to her lips and kissed them gently, replying:  “Need I say it again?”

“Ah, my child!  I did this thing myself.  I left my father to follow my husband; and yet my father was all alone; I was all the child he had.  Is that why God has so punished me?  What I ask of you is to marry as your father wishes, to cherish him in your heart, not to sacrifice him to your own happiness, but to make him the centre of your home.  Before losing my sight, I wrote him all my wishes, and I know he will execute them.  I enjoined him to keep his property intact and in his own hands; not that I distrust you, my Modeste, for a moment, but who can be sure of a son-in-law?  Ah! my daughter, look at me; was I reasonable?  One glance of the eye decided my life.  Beauty, so often deceitful, in my case spoke true; but even were it the same with you, my poor child, swear to me that you will let your father inquire into the character, the habits, the heart, and the previous life of the man you distinguish with your love—­if, by chance, there is such a man.”

“I will never marry without the consent of my father,” answered Modeste.

“You see, my darling,” said Madame Mignon after a long pause, “that if I am dying by inches through Bettina’s wrong-doing, your father would not survive yours, no, not for a moment.  I know him; he would put a pistol to his head,—­there could be no life, no happiness on earth for him.”

Modeste walked a few steps away from her mother, but immediately came back.

“Why did you leave me?” demanded Madame Mignon.

“You made me cry, mamma,” answered Modeste.

“Ah, my little darling, kiss me.  You love no one here? you have no lover, have you?” she asked, holding Modeste on her lap, heart to heart.