safe from the sorrows and temptations of this world, Jacqueline seemed for the first time to understand why Giselle regretted that she might not share forever the blessed peace enjoyed in the convent.  A torpor stole over her, caused by the dimness, the faint odor of the incense, and the solemn silence.  She imagined herself in the act of giving up the world.  She saw herself in a veil, with her eyes raised to Heaven, very pale, standing behind the grille.  She would have to cut off her hair.

That seemed hard, but she would make the sacrifice.  She would accept anything, provided the ungrateful pair, whom she would not name, could feel sorrow for her loss—­maybe even remorse.  Full of these ideas, which certainly had little in common with the feelings of those who seek to forgive those who trespass against them, Jacqueline continued to imagine herself a Benedictine sister, under the soothing influence of her surroundings, just as she had mistaken the effects of physical weakness when she was ill for a desire to die.  Such feelings were the result of a void which the whole universe, as she thought, never could fill, but it was really a temporary vacuum, like that caused by the loss of a first tooth.  These teeth come out with the first jar, and nature intends them to be speedily replaced by others, much more permanent; but children cry when they are pulled out, and fancy they are in very tight.  Perhaps they suffer, after all, nearly as much as they think they do.

“Mademoiselle!” said Modeste, touching her on the shoulder.

“I was content to be here,” answered Jacqueline, with a sigh.  “Do you know, Modeste,” she went on, when they got out of doors, “that I have almost made up my mind to be a nun.  What do you say to that?”

“Heaven forbid!” cried the old nurse, much startled.

“Life is so hard,” replied her young mistress.

“Not for you, anyhow.  It would be a sin to say so.”

“Ah!  Modeste, we so little know the real truth of things—­we can see only appearances.  Don’t you think that a linen band over my forehead would be very becoming to me?  I should look like Saint Theresa.”

“And what would be the good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when there would be nobody to tell you so?” said Modeste, with the practical good-sense that never forsook her.  “You would be beautiful for yourself alone.  You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about that fancy to Monsieur—­we should soon see what he would say to such a notion.”

M. de Nailles, having just left the Chamber, was crossing the Pont de la Concorde on foot at this moment.  His daughter ran up to him, and caught him by the arm.  They walked homeward talking of very different things from bolts and bars.  The Baron, who was a weak man, thought in his heart that he had been too severe with his daughter for some time past.  As he recalled what had taken place, the anger of Madame de Nailles in the matter of the picture seemed to him to have been extreme and unnecessary.  Jacqueline was just at an age when young girls are apt to be nervous and impressionable; they had been wrong to be rough with one who was so sensitive.  His wife was quite of his opinion, she acknowledged (not wishing him to think too much on the subject) that she had been too quick-tempered.