Her mother gave her twenty francs a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her, mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents.

She never read what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director, called profane books.

This discipline had borne fruit.

Forced to employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after gain.

Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand.