Etienne listened to his mother with a passionate admiration she had never seen except in the eyes of Georges de Chaverny.
The first time the poor woman found a memory of her girlhood in the long, slow look of her child, she covered him with kisses; and she blushed when Etienne asked her why she seemed to love him better at that moment than ever before.

She answered that every hour made him dearer to her.

She found in the training of his soul, and in the culture of his mind, pleasures akin to those she had tasted in feeding him with her milk.

She put all her pride and self-love into making him superior to herself, and not in ruling him.

Hearts without tenderness covet dominion, but a true love treasures abnegation, that virtue of strength.
When Etienne could not at first comprehend a demonstration, a theme, a theory, the poor mother, who was present at the lessons, seemed to long to infuse knowledge, as formerly she had given nourishment at the child's least cry.