As for the mother's sentiments towards her sons, the countess raised to heaven her cold and macerated eyes, as if to ask pardon of God for not having snatched them from iniquity.
Her exclamations, and also her reticences on the subject of her sons, were equal to the most lamenting verses in Jeremiah, and completely deceived the sisters, who supposed their sinful brothers to be doomed to perdition.
When the boys were eighteen years of age, the count gave them rooms in his own part of the house, and sent them to study law under the supervision of a solicitor, his former secretary.

The two Maries knew nothing therefore of fraternity, except by theory.

At the time of the marriage of the sisters, both brothers were practising in provincial courts, and both were detained by important cases.

Domestic life in many families which might be expected to be intimate, united, and homogeneous, is really spent in this way.

Brothers are sent to a distance, busy with their own careers, their own advancement, occupied, perhaps, about the good of the country; the sisters are engrossed in a round of other interests.