Try, imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the
police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town
about the veriest trifles,--how many dishes the prefect has at his
dessert, how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small
householder,--which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a
thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the
incomes of the village and the town and the department. It was mere
chance that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest's
reconnoitring expedition,--a step which he already regretted; but what
Parisian can allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl?
Incapable of being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all
noble sentiments in man.
We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest
young fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited,
in which every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will
be found to have left its trace.
This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window
on a fine summer's day:--
Mademoiselle,--Without hypocrisy or evasion, _yes_, if I had been
certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted
differently.
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