The picture of the days and nights she had now spent for weeks with the old lady, presented in vivid characters a mixture of great and petty troubles, external and mental humiliations.
Only too often the same drinking and carousing had gone on below as to-day-Henrica had always been compelled to join her aunt's guests, elderly dissolute men of French or Italian origin and easy morals.

While describing these conventicles, the blood crimsoned her flushed cheeks still more deeply, and the long strokes of the pen grew heavier and heavier.

What the abbe related and her aunt laughed at, what the Italian screamed and Monseigneur smilingly condemned with a slight shake of the head, was so shamelessly bold that she would have been defiled by repeating the words.

Was she a respectable girl or not?
She would rather hunger and thirst, than be present at such a banquet again.

If the dining-room was empty, other unprecedented demands were made upon Henrica, for then her aunt, who could not endure to be alone a moment, was sick and miserable, and she was obliged to nurse her.