Alissa Bucolin drew from her mother her dark romantic beauty and a neurotic temperament, but her spiritual strain reflected the cultured Huguenots of her father’s family. Born in the native town of Mademoiselle de Scudéry (the author of the _Grand Cyrus_) and of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (the author of _Paul et Virginie_), she was akin to the great _précieuse_ and to the idealist philosopher--and the likeness makes us wonder if a peculiar morbid sentimentality, a rare delicacy of emotional fibre, be usual in the inhabitants of that flourishing seaport! Alissa had grown up in the companionship of a sister, a brother, and a young boy cousin, two years her junior--and from their childhood it had been understood that Alissa and Jérôme were one day to marry. But when the girl was sixteen years of age, the mystery of Evil, and all the scars and scoria of mortal passion, were suddenly revealed to her by the conduct of her mother. A novel gaiety and laughter transfigured Mme Bucolin, coinciding with the frequent visits of a certain young lieutenant. And one day Jérôme found Alissa weeping and praying by her bedside while from the floor below her mother’s laughter pealed up--unaccustomed as a portent. ‘Bucolin, Bucolin,’ drolled the young lieutenant, ‘Si j’avais un mouton, sûrement je l’appelerais Bucolin!’ and Alissa, weeping, murmured to her dear confidant, ‘Jérôme, ne raconte rien à personne ... mon pauvre papa ne sait rien!’ Thus, in its very bud, the young shoot of love in her heart was infected by shame; and she felt the longing to expiate and offer her life as an oblation. Moreover, Juliette, three years younger than Alissa, had let her fancy light on her young cousin; and the serious Alissa (to whom every preference appeared a vital passion) determined to sacrifice her dream of happiness in her sister’s favour. Her strenuous soul was naturally inclined to sacrifice, finding in privation that mysterious exaltation of the will, that constant and progressive self-mastery, which animate with an intense though secret interest the life of the ascetic. But neither her young sister nor Jérôme would accept her oblation. Juliette married very young a middle-aged wine grower in the south of France, had several children, became her husband’s associate, provided an opening for her younger brother--fulfilled, in fact, the French ideal of feminine activity, importance, and devotedness, and was perfectly happy; while Alissa was left (so to speak) with her sacrifice returned unopened, left upon her hands. And Juliette’s recovery from her first love, her happiness in a simple marriage of reason, contributed to discredit human passion in the mind of the fastidious Alissa:--