tell me, if you cannot read in my
features, how proud I am, Magdalen, how justly proud of your love!"

Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, Mother Bunch had not dared to look
on Agricola; but his words expressed so deep a conviction, the tones of
his voice revealed so tender an emotion, that the poor creature felt her
shame gradually diminish, particularly when Agricola added, with rising
animation: "Be satisfied, my sweet, my noble Magdalen; I will be worthy
of this love. Believe me, it shall yet cause you as much happiness as it
has occasioned tears. Why should this love be a motive for estrangement,
confusion, fear? For what is love, in the sense in which it is held by
your generous heart? Is it not a continual exchange of devotion,
tenderness, esteem, of mutual and blind confidence?--Why, Magdalen! we
may have all this for one another--devotion, tenderness, confidence--even
more than in times past; for, on a thousand occasions, your secret
inspired you with fear and suspicion--while, for the future, on the
contrary, you will see me take such delight in the place I fill in your
good and valiant heart, that you will be happy in the happiness you
bestow. What I have just said may seem very selfish and conceited; so
much the worse! I do not know how to lie."

The longer the smith spoke, the less troubled became Mother Bunch. What
she had above all feared in the discovery of her secret was to see it
received with raillery, contempt, or humiliating compassion; far from
this, joy and happiness were distinctly visible on the manly and honest
face of Agricola. The hunchback knew him incapable of deception;
therefore she exclaimed, this time without shame or confusion, but rather
with a sort of pride.

"Every sincere and pure passion is so far good and con soling as to end
by deserving interest and sympathy, when it has triumphed over its first
excess! It is alike honorable to the heart which feels and that which
inspires it!--Thanks to you, Agricola--thanks to the kind words, which
have raised me in my own esteem--I feel that, instead of blushing, I
ought to be proud of this love. My benefactress is right--you are right:
why should I be ashamed of it? Is it not a true and sacred love? To be
near you, to love you, to tell you so, to prove it by constant devotion,
what did I ever desire more? And yet shame and fear, joined with that
dizziness of the brain which extreme misery produces, drove me to
suicide!--But then some al