"I love Brulette very much, that is true, but without any love-sighing, and without any regrets or worries about what she thinks of me. I have no love in my heart, because it would do me no good to have any." "Ah, you are very lucky, Tiennet!" she cried, "to be able to govern your feelings by your mind in that way." "I should be better worth something, Thérence, if, like you, I governed them by my heart. Yes, yes, I know you; I have watched you, and I know the true secret of your conduct. I have seen how, for the last eight days, you have set aside your own feelings to cure Joseph, and how you secretly do everything for his good without letting him see so much as your little finger in it. You want him to be happy, and you said true when you told Brulette and me that if we can do good to those we love there is no need to be thinking of our own happiness. That's what you do and what you are; and though jealousy may sometimes get the better of you, you recover directly. It is marvellous to see how strong and generous you are; it is saintly. You must allow that if either of us two is to respect the other, it is I you, not you me. I am a rather sensible fellow, and that is all; you are a girl with a great heart, and a stern hand upon yourself." "Thanks for the good you think of me," replied Thérence, "but perhaps I don't deserve it, my lad. You want me to be in love with Joseph, and I am not. As God is my judge, I have never thought of being his wife, and the attachment I feel to him is rather that of a sister or a mother." "Oh! as for that, I am not sure that you don't deceive yourself, Thérence. Your disposition is impulsive." "That is just why I do not deceive myself. I love my father and brother deeply and almost madly. If I had children I should defend them like a wolf and brood over them like a hen; but the thing they call love, such, for instance, as my brother feels for Brulette,--the desire to please, and a nameless sort of feeling which makes him suffer when alone, and not be able to think of her without pain,--all that I do not feel at all, and I cannot imagine it. Joseph may leave us forever if it will do him good, and I shall thank God, and only grieve if it turns out that he is the worse for it." Thérence's way of looking at the matter gave me a good deal to think of. I could not understand it very well, for she now seemed to me above all others and above me. I walked a little way beside her without saying a word, not knowing whither my mind was going; for I was seized with such a feeling of ardent friendship that I longed with all my heart to embrace her, with all respect and thinking no harm, till suddenly a glance at her, so young and beautiful, filled me with shame and fear. When we reached the inn I asked her, apropos of what I forget, to tell me exactly what her father had said of me. "He said," she replied, "that you were a man of the strongest good sense he had ever known."