"Do you know, mother," said Gilberte to Janille, "he doesn't know what answer to give him? Apparently he wasn't able to say no to him." "Well, my child, your father didn't do very wrong," replied Janille, "for I listened to your fine suitor's offer without getting excited, and I didn't say yes or no to him. There! there! don't be angry. That's the right way to do, and then consult calmly. You can't say to the fellow: 'I don't like you;' people don't say that sort of thing. You can't say to him either: 'We belong to a good family and your name is Galuchet;' for that would be unkind and mortifying." "And it wouldn't be any reason," said Gilberte. "What does nobility matter to us now? True nobility is in the heart and not in empty titles. It isn't the name of Galuchet that disgusts me, but the manners and feelings of the man who bears it." "My daughter is right: name, profession and fortune are nothing," said Monsieur Antoine. "So those are not the means for us to use. Nor can we blame a man for his physical defects. The best thing for us to say is that Gilberte doesn't want to marry." "Allow me, monsieur, one moment," said Janille. "I don't propose to have you say that; for if this young man should go about repeating it--as he wouldn't fail to do--no one else would come forward, and I am not in favor of my girl turning nun." "But we must give some reason," said Monsieur Antoine. "Suppose we say that she doesn't want to marry yet, and that we think she's too young." "Yes, yes, that's it, father! you have hit upon the best reason, and it's the true one. I do not want to marry yet; I am too young." "That is not true!" cried Janille. "You are old enough, and I believe that before long you will find a good husband whom you like and whom we all like." "Don't think of that, mother," said Gilberte, warmly. "I will take my oath before God that my father told the truth. I do not want to marry yet, and I want everybody to know it, so that all suitors may keep away. Oh dear! if I am to be surrounded by such importunate creatures, you will take away all the happiness I have in my home, and make my youth sad and gloomy! and you will make me unhappy to no purpose, for I shall not change my resolution, and I will die rather than part from you." "Who says anything about parting?" rejoined Janille. "The man who loves you won't want to make you unhappy; and, more than that, you don't know what you will think when you love someone. Ah! my dear child! then it will be our turn to weep, perhaps, for it is written that the woman shall leave her father and mother to follow her husband, and He who said that knew a woman's heart." "Oh! that is a law of obedience, not a law of love," cried Emile. "The man who truly loves Gilberte will truly love her parents and her friends as his own, and will no more desire to separate her from them than he will desire to live apart from them himself."