“How is this possible, Emilie?” said she. “Here is a woman who would give me half her fortune, and who yet seems to wish that I should not recover the whole of mine! Here is a woman who would move heaven and earth to serve me in her own way; but who, nevertheless, will not give me either a word of advice or a look of sympathy, in the most important affair and the most anxious moment of my life! But this is more than _bizarre_--this is intolerably provoking. For my part, I would rather a friend would deny me any thing than sympathy: without sympathy, there is no society--there is no living--there is no talking. I begin to feel my obligations a burden; and, positively, with the first money I receive from my estates, I will relieve myself from my pecuniary debt to this generous but incomprehensible Englishwoman.” Every day Emilie dreaded the arrival of the post, when her mother asked, “Are there any letters from Paris?”--Constantly the answer was--“No.”--Mrs. Somers’ look was triumphant; and Mad. de Coulanges applied regularly to her smelling-bottle or her snuff-box to conceal her emotion, which Mrs. Somers increased by indirect reflections upon the absurdity of those who listen to idle reports, and build castles in the air. Having set her opinion in opposition to Lady Littleton’s, she supported it with a degree of obstinacy, and even acrimony, which made her often transgress the bounds of that politeness which she had formerly maintained in all her differences with the comtesse.