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42 reason why Berta sighs." "Ah! And what does the mirror tell her to console her?" "Why, the mirror tells her that she is beautiful." "Yes?" "Yes; that her eyes are dark and lustrous, her eyebrows magnificent, her cheeks fresh and rosy." "And what then?" "It is plain; her heart is filled with hope, and therefore it is that Berta smiles."

This is the condition of mind in which we find her. Up to the present she has passed her life without thinking of anything more serious than the innocent pranks of childhood; she was a child up to the age of seventeen, but a boisterous, gay, restless, daring, mischievous child; she turned the house upside down, and in the same way she would have been capable of turning the world upside down; she had neither fears nor duties; she played like a crazy thing and slept like a fool. For her mother had died before Berta was old enough to know her; and although her mother's portrait hung at the head of her bed, this image, at once sweet and serious, was not sufficient to restrain the thoughtless impetuosity of the girl. She was, besides, an only daughter, and her father, of whom we shall give some account later, adored her. In addition to all this, her nurse, who acted as housekeeper in the house, was at the same time the accomplice and the apologist of her pranks, for the truth is she loved her like the apple of her eye.