Come, I will take you to your parents, and provide for you.

You shall be as beautiful and accomplished a lady as your sister, but, Heaven grant, a more generous and noble-hearted one! Come!" These words, spoken with a gentle, winning voice, had never died away in her heart.

Twelve years had passed since then, and they still rang in her ear, in the tumult of the world as well as in the quiet of her lonely room.

They had comforted her when the shame of her existence oppressed her; rejoiced her when, with the delight of youth and happiness, she had given herself up to pleasure.

She had followed him quietly, devotedly, as a little dog follows his master.