The good nuns, who had been so sure of her vocation, perceived with

great astonishment that Mademoiselle Rouault seemed to be slipping

from them. They had indeed been so lavish to her of prayers, retreats,

novenas, and sermons, they had so often preached the respect due to

saints and martyrs, and given so much good advice as to the modesty of

the body and the salvation of her soul, that she did as tightly reined

horses; she pulled up short and the bit slipped from her teeth. This

nature, positive in the midst of its enthusiasms, that had loved the

church for the sake of the flowers, and music for the words of the

songs, and literature for its passional stimulus, rebelled against

the mysteries of faith as it grew irritated by discipline, a thing

antipathetic to her constitution. When her father took her from school,

no one was sorry to see her go. The Lady Superior even thought that she

had latterly been somewhat irreverent to the community.

Emma, at home once more, first took pleasure in looking after the

servants, then grew disgusted with the country and missed her convent.

When Charles came to the Bertaux for the first time, she thought herself

quite disillusioned, with nothing more to learn, and nothing more to

feel.

But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps the disturbance

caused by the presence of this man, had sufficed to make her believe

that she at last felt that wondrous passion which, till then, like a

great bird with rose-coloured wings, hung in the splendour of the skies

of poesy; and now she could not think that the calm in which she lived

was the happiness she had dreamed.




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