Friends of the Vilquins expressed surprise that the mother and daughter were willing to live on among the scenes of their former splendor.

From her open window behind the closed blinds Modeste sometimes heard such insolence as this:-- "I am sure I can't think how they can live there," some one would say as he paced the villa lawn,--perhaps to assist Vilquin in getting rid of his tenant.
"What do you suppose they live on?
they haven't any means of earning money." "I am told the old woman has gone blind." "Is Mademoiselle Mignon still pretty?
Dear me, how dashing she used to be! Well, she hasn't any horses now." Most young girls on hearing these spiteful and silly speeches, born of an envy that now rushed, peevish and drivelling, to avenge the past, would have felt the blood mount to their foreheads; others would have wept; some would have undergone spasms of anger; but Modeste smiled, as we smile at the theatre while watching the actors.

Her pride could not descend so low as the level of such speeches.
The other event was more serious than these mercenary meannesses.
Bettina Caroline died in the arms of her younger sister, who had nursed her with the devotion of girlhood, and the curiosity of an untainted imagination.

In the silence of long nights the sisters exchanged many a confidence.

With what dramatic interest was poor Bettina invested in the eyes of the innocent Modeste?
Bettina knew love through sorrow only, and she was dying of it.