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54 said to her, so heart-whole that she now formed a plan, which, however startling, reveals the simplicity and elevation of her nature. No sooner had she received Sévelinges' letter than she grasped the whole situation of affairs. Here was a highly-refined, cultivated man, tender-hearted, intellectual, learned, subtle, a man with whom she could have that community of ideas which was to her the sine quâ non of married life—a man who led a lonely, depressed, isolated existence, while she at home felt more and more in her father's way, between whom and herself the breach had been gradually widening. Trouble, discord, ruin, were threatening her domestic horizon, while the pleasing prospect of a peaceful home beckoned to her from Soissons. On the other hand, her high sense of justice warned her that M. de Sévelinges' means were extremely limited, his income not exceeding four hundred pounds per annum. His means, such as they were, partly proceeding from his first wife's fortune, seemed naturally to belong to his sons, two young men in the army, who would have just cause to complain, she considered, if, by the advent of a young family, they should be still further stinted in their expenses. Had she herself possessed a more ample dowry, her way would have been clear enough; but, under the circumstances, she could not reconcile such a marriage with her conscience. But an idea struck her, and to her faithful confidante, Sophie, she confesses that she thinks De Sévelinges must have been cherishing a similar notion—that of gaining a sister and companion, under a title which the custom of society rendered indispensable. This vision of passing her life by the side of a man to whom she would minister with an absolutely unselfish devotion quite