"My father is old; he is wrapped up in me as a mother is in her child. It is my duty not to shorten his days by causing him anxiety, and heaven has entrusted to me the mission of making him live a long while." Lauriane was living in Poitou, and they rarely heard from her. She wrote in an affectionate and respectful tone to the marquis, but she hardly mentioned Mario's name, as if she dreaded to remind him of herself. By way of compensation she wrote in the most affectionate terms of the Moor, Lucilio, and the faithful retainers of the family. It seemed that her affection, held in check with those who had the first claim upon it, instinctively took its revenge with the others. She announced several times, with a sort of affectation, that there were divers projects of marriage under consideration, and that she would soon inform them of her decision, desiring, she said, to make a choice that would be agreeable to the marquis, whom she looked upon as a second father. The strange feature of these alleged marriage projects was that she recurred to them year after year, as if they were constantly abandoned and revived, without imparting anything of interest to her friends as to her choice; as if her real purpose were to say to them: "I do not marry because I am not so inclined; but do not for one moment think that I am reserving myself for you." Such was, in fact, her purpose in writing these letters, and her state of mind may be thus described: When he took her away from Berry, intending soon to part from her, Monsieur de Beuvre had inflicted a cruel wound upon her heart by inventing a fable to the effect that the marquis and his heir, when consulted by him at Bourges, had met his advances very coldly. Mario had shown himself a very fervent Catholic on that occasion; he had sworn that he would never enter into a _mixed_ marriage. Lauriane should have distrusted a father in whom the thirst for gold had penetrated to the very entrails, and who, being in haste to go away, was determined at any price to persuade her to marry promptly. She refused to marry in anger and without due consideration; but she promised to reflect upon it, and in her heart proudly abandoned the ungrateful Mario. She had loved him at Bourges--really loved him for the first time after years of placid friendship. And that first love of her life, almost before it was admitted, hardly revealed to herself, she had had to blush for in very shame, and to crush it without a sign of weakening!