ith surprise.

"Ah!" she said, "no doubt you think me younger [bocou plus jeune] than I
really am. What do you suppose is my age?"

Suzanne replied: "You look younger than Francoise, and she is sixteen."

"I am twenty-three," replied Alix, laughing again and again.

Another time my sister took a book, haphazard, from the shelves.
Ordinarily [audinaremend] Alix herself chose our reading, but she was busy
embroidering. Suzanne sat down and began to read aloud a romance entitled
"Two Destinies."

"Ah!" cried my sister, "these two girls must be Francoise and I."

"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Alix, with a heavy sigh, and Suzanne began her
reading. It told of two sisters of noble family. The elder had been
married to a count, handsome, noble, and rich; and the other, against her
parents' wish, to a poor workingman who had taken her to a distant
country, where she died of regret and misery. Alix and I listened
attentively; but before Suzanne had finished, Alix softly took the book
from her hands and replaced it on the shelf.

"I would not have chosen that book for you; it is full of exaggerations
and falsehoods."

"And yet," said Suzanne, "see with what truth the lot of the countess is
described! How happy she was in her emblazoned coach, and her jewels, her
laces, her dresses of velvet and brocade! Ah, Francoise! of the two
destinies I choose that one."

Alix looked at her for a moment and then dropped her head in silence.
Suzanne went on in her giddy way:

"And the other: how she was punished for her plebeian tastes!"

"So, my dear Suzanne," responded Alix, "you would not marry--"

"A man not my equal--a workman? Ah! certainly not."

Madame Carpentier turned slightly pale. I looked at Suzanne with eyes full
of reproach; and Suzanne remembering the gardener, at that moment in his
shirt sleeves pushing one of the boat's long sweeps, bit her lip and
turned to hide her tears. But Alix--the dear little creature!--rose, threw
her arms about my sister's neck, kissed her, and said:

"I know very well that you had no wish to give me pain, dear Suzanne. You
have only called up some dreadful things that I am trying to forget. I am
the daughter of a count. My childhood and youth were passed in chateaux
and palaces, surrounded by every pleasure that an immense fortune could
supply. As the wife of a viscount I have been received at court; I have
been the companion of princesses. To-day all that is a dreadful dream.
Before me I h