oan,
striving to hide her wound; she had manifested in his presence that
exquisite modesty in suffering so rare among her sex. He was the more
grateful to her for it, that he was deeply averse to those pathetic and
turbulent demonstrations which most women never fail to eagerly exhibit on
every occasion, when they are indeed kind enough not to bring them about.

CHAPTER III.

JULIA'S CHAMPION.

Monsieur de Lucan had been Clotilde's husband for several months when the
rumor spread among society that Mademoiselle de Trecoeur, formerly known
as such an incarnate little devil, was about taking the vail in the
convent of the Faubourg Saint Germain, to which she had withdrawn before
her mother's marriage. That rumor was well founded. Julia had endured at
first with some difficulty the discipline and the observances to which the
simple boarders of the establishment were themselves bound to submit; then
she had been gradually taken with a pious fervor, the excesses of which
they had been compelled to moderate. She had begged her mother not to put
an obstacle to the irresistible inclination which she felt for a religious
life, and Clotilde had with difficulty obtained permission that she should
adjourn her resolution until the accomplishment of her sixteenth year.

Madame de Lucan's relations with her daughter since her marriage had been
of a singular character. She came almost daily to visit her, and always
received the liveliest manifestations of affection at her hands; but on
two points, and those the most sensitive, the young girl had remained
inflexible; she had never consented either to return to the maternal roof,
nor to see her mother's husband.

She had even remained for a long time without making the slightest
allusion to Clotilde's altered situation, which she affected to ignore.
One day, at last, feeling the intolerable torture of such a reserve, she
made up her mind, and fixing her flashing eyes upon her mother:

"Well, are you happy at last?" she said.

"How can I be," said Clotilde, "since you hate the man I love?"

"I hate no one," replied Julia, dryly. "How is your husband?"

From that moment she inquired regularly after Monsieur de Lucan in a tone
of polite indifference; but she never uttered without hesitation and
evident discomfort the name of the man who had taken her father's place.

In the meantime she had reached her sixteenth year. Her mother's promise
had been formal. Julia was hencefo