When I have read your
confidence, if you deign to make it, you shall receive from me an
answer to your first letter.
Having admired your talent, often so sublime, permit me to do
homage to your delicacy and your integrity, which force me to
remain always,
Your humble servant,
O. d'Este M.
When Ernest de La Briere had held this letter in his hands for some
little time he went to walk along the boulevards, tossed in mind like
a tiny vessel by a tempest when the wind is blowing from all points of
the compass. Most young men, specially true Parisians, would have
settled the matter in a single phrase, "The girl is a little hussy."
But for a youth whose soul was noble and true, this attempt to put
him, as it were, upon his oath, this appeal to truth, had the power to
awaken the three judges hidden in the conscience of every man. Honor,
Truth, and Justice, getting on their feet, cried out in their several
ways energetically.
"Ah, my dear Ernest," said Truth, "you never would have read that
lesson to a rich heiress. No, my boy; you would have gone in hot haste
to Havre to find out if the girl were handsome, and you would have
been very unhappy indeed at her preference for genius; and if you
could have tripped up your friend and supplanted him in her
affections, Mademoiselle d'Este would have been a divinity.
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