I can only compare my Gabrielle to a pearl; her skin has the pearl's translucence, her soul its softness, and until this day Forcalier has been her fostering shell." "Come with me," said Etienne, throwing on a cloak.

"I want to walk on the seashore, the air is so soft." Beauvouloir and his master walked in silence until they reached a spot where a line of light, coming from between the shutters of a fisherman's house, had furrowed the sea with a golden rivulet.
"I know not how to express," said Etienne, addressing his companion, "the sensations that light, cast upon the water, excites in me.

I have often watched it streaming from the windows of that room," he added, pointing back to his mother's chamber, "until it was extinguished." "Delicate as Gabrielle is," said Beauvouloir, gaily, "she can come and walk with us; the night is warm, and the air has no dampness.

I will fetch her; but be prudent, monseigneur." Etienne was too timid to propose to accompany Beauvouloir into the house; besides, he was in that torpid state into which we are plunged by the influx of ideas and sensations which give birth to the dawn of passion.

Conscious of more freedom in being alone, he cried out, looking at the sea now gleaming in the moonlight,-- "The Ocean has passed into my soul!" The sight of the lovely living statuette which was now advancing towards him, silvered by the moon and wrapped in its light, redoubled the palpitations of his heart, but without causing him to suffer.
"My child," said Beauvouloir, "this is monseigneur." In a moment poor Etienne longed for his father's colossal figure; he would fain have seemed strong, not puny.