s son to marry Lucile when she grows up.

Without an intolerable dose of "argument," it is only possible to say
here that Nelvil, after his father's death, journeys to the Continent
(where he has been already engaged in a questionable _liaison_), meets
Corinne, and, not at first knowing in the least who she is, falls, or
thinks he falls, frantically in love with her, while she really does
fall more frantically in love with him. After a sojourn, of which a
little more presently, circumstances make him (or he thinks they make
him) return home, and he falls, or thinks he falls,[15] out of love with
Corinne and into it (after a fashion) with Lucile. Corinne undertakes an
incognito journey to England to find out what is happening, but (this,
though not impossible in itself, is, as told, the weakest part of the
story) never makes herself known till too late, and Nelvil, partly out
of respect for his father's wishes, and partly, one fears, because
Lucile is very pretty and Corinne seems to be very far off, marries the
younger sister.

It would have greatly improved the book if, with or even without a
"curtain," it had ended here. But Madame de Stael goes on to tell us how
Nelvil, who is a soldier by profession,[16] leaves his wife and a little
daughter, Juliette, and goes to "Les Iles" on active service for four
years; how Lucile, not unnaturally, suspects hankering after the sister
she has not seen since her childhood; how, Nelvil being invalided home,
they all go to Italy, and find Corinne in a dying condition; how Lucile
at first refuses to see her, but, communications being opened by the
child Juliette, reconciliations follow; and how Corinne dies with Nelvil
and Lucile duly kneeling at her bedside.

The minor personages of any importance are not numerous. Besides Lady
Edgermond, they consist of the Comte d'Erfeuil, a French travelling
companion of Nelvil's; the Prince of Castel-Forte, an Italian of the
highest rank; a Mr. Edgermond, who does not make much appearance, but is
more like a real Englishman in his ways and manners than Nelvil; an old
Scotch nincompoop named Dickson, who, unintentionally, makes mischief
wherever he goes as surely as the personage in the song made music. Lady
Edgermond, though she is neither bad nor exactly ill-natured, is the
evil genius of the story. Castel-Forte, a most honourable and excellent
gentleman, has so little of typical Italianism in him that, finding
Corinne will not have him, he