m going. Monsieur le president was most anxious
to take his place; but he was determined to go, and now we all see why."

In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was under no obligation
to des Grassins.

* * * * *

In all situations women have more cause for suffering than men, and they
suffer more. Man has strength and the power of exercising it; he acts,
moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks ahead, and sees consolation in
the future. It was thus with Charles. But the woman stays at home; she
is always face to face with the grief from which nothing distracts
her; she goes down to the depths of the abyss which yawns before her,
measures it, and often fills it with her tears and prayers. Thus did
Eugenie. She initiated herself into her destiny. To feel, to love, to
suffer, to devote herself,--is not this the sum of woman's life? Eugenie
was to be in all things a woman, except in the one thing that consoles
for all. Her happiness, picked up like nails scattered on a wall--to use
the fine simile of Bossuet--would never so much as fill even the hollow
of her hand. Sorrows are never long in coming; for her they came soon.
The day after Charles's departure the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed
its ordinary aspect in the eyes of all, except in those of Eugenie, to
whom it grew suddenly empty. She wished, if it could be done unknown to
her father, that Charles's room might be kept as he had left it. Madame
Grandet and Nanon were willing accomplices in this _statu quo_.

"Who knows but he may come back sooner than we think for?" she said.

"Ah, don't I wish I could see him back!" answered Nanon. "I took to him!
He was such a dear, sweet young man,--pretty too, with his curly hair."
Eugenie looked at Nanon. "Holy Virgin! don't look at me that way,
mademoiselle; your eyes are like those of a lost soul."

From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new character.
The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her soul, and the
dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features an illumination such
as painters render by a halo. Before the coming of her cousin, Eugenie
might be compared to the Virgin before the conception; after he had
gone, she was like the Virgin Mother,--she had given birth to love.
These two Marys so different, so well represented by Spanish art, embody
one of those shining symbols with which Christianity abounds.

Returning from Mass on the morning aft