Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/231

 young and too inexperienced to fight the miseries of a life started without any other income than that which I owe to the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. Besides, my guardian does not wish me to marry before I am twenty. Who knows what fate is reserving for you during those four years, the best of your life? Do not blight it then for a poor girl.

“After having stated to you, monsieur, my dear guardian’s reasons, who, far from opposing my happiness, desires to contribute to it with all his power, and hopes to see his protection, which must soon grow feeble, replaced by a tenderness equal to his own, it only remains for me to tell you how much I am touched both by your offer and the kind compliments which accompany it. The prudence which dictates this answer comes from an old man to whom life is well known; but the gratitude that I convey to you is that of a young girl whose mind knows no other feeling.

“Thus, monsieur, I can sign myself in all sincerity,

“Your servant,

“URSULE MIROUET.”

Savinien did not reply. Was he making fresh attempts with his mother? Had this letter quenched his love? A thousand such questions, all insoluble, tortured Ursule horribly, and, indirectly, the doctor, who suffered from his dear child’s slightest agitation. Ursule would often go up to her room and look across at Savinien, whom she could see, thoughtfully sitting at his table and constantly turning his gaze upon her windows. At the end of a week, not before that, she received the following letter from Savinien, the delay being accounted for by an increase of love: