"`You will always be as dear to me as my own child, whatever name you are called by,' she said. `But as I was saying, Edmee, you are growing a big girl; there are many things young ladies of your station need to learn that cannot be taught in a village like Valmont. And your dear mother has never wished to be separated from you, so she would not send you away to a convent to be educated, as so many young girls are sent. That is why she now feels there is truth in what her brother, my lord the Marquis, is always saying--that she must go to live in Paris for awhile, taking you with her. There you can have lessons of every kind, in all the accomplishments right for you to know. And my lady too--she has lived here so many years, seldom seeing any friends of her own rank--perhaps for her, too, it may be well--this change. It is only natural, sadly as we shall all miss her.' "Edmee's face had grown more and more melancholy as Madame Germain went on speaking, till at last she dropped it in her hands, and, leaning her head on her friend's knees, burst into a fit of sobbing. She did not cry loudly or wildly, but Madame Germain, laying her hand on her shoulders, felt how the child shook all through, and was startled at the effect of her words. "`My child, my precious little lady,' she said, `do not take it so to heart. Be brave, my Edmee. Think how it will trouble your dear mamma if she sees you so unhappy. For it is for your sake my lady is doing this--for your good--that you may grow up all that she and the good Count hoped you would.' "Edmee raised her tear-stained face. "`I don't mean to be naughty,' she said, `but I don't want to go to Paris. I want to stay here, among my own people. In Paris no one will love us; it will all be full of strangers, who care for us no more than we care for them. Here in my own Valmont I know every face. I never walk down the village street without every one smiling at me. Oh! mamma Germain, I shall feel starved and cold among strangers, and I shall choke to be in a town among houses and walls--no longer my dear gardens and park, and trees and fields, and all the lovely country.' "`But that is selfish, Edmee, my child,' said her kind friend. `If your dear mother can make up her mind to do it--for to her it is perhaps even more painful than to you--for your sake, you at least should be grateful to her, and do your best to show her you are so. In after years, if you never saw anything of the world but your little Valmont, you might regret your ignorance--might even reproach your friends for having shut you up in this corner. And you will come back again. It is not for _always_ you are going away.'