But may I
speak my real opinion to you, my Lady?"
Caroline was eagerly watching the lips of the garrulous dame. She
started, brushed back with a stroke of her hand the thick hair that
had fallen over her ear,--"Oh, speak all your thoughts, good dame!
If your next words were to kill me, speak them!"
"My next words will not harm you, my Lady," said she, with a meaning
smile, "if you will accept the opinion of an old woman, who learned
the ways of men when she was the Charming Josephine! You must not
conclude that because the Chevalier Intendant admires, or even loves
Angelique des Meloises, he is going to marry her. That is not the
fashion of these times. Men love beauty, and marry money; love is
more plenty than matrimony, both at Paris and at Quebec, at
Versailles as well as at Beaumanoir or even at Lake Beauport, as I
learned to my cost when I was the Charming Josephine!"
Caroline blushed crimson at the remark of Dame Tremblay. Her voice
quivered with emotion. "It is sin to cheapen love like that, dame!
And yet I know we have sometimes to bury our love in our heart, with
no hope of resurrection.
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