Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/84

 "Poor dear Edmond," I said, "let him come to me. He is more beautiful than Adonis."

"While we are waiting for your lord and master," mamma answered, "admire yourself; look in the glass. You may admire yourself for a long time without blame, if you are to make up for lost time."

I obeyed; a little from vanity, a little from curiosity. What if I was ugly? What if my plainness, like my poverty, had been concealed from me? They led me to my pier-glass. I uttered a cry of joy. With my slender figure, my complexion like a rose, my eyes a little dazed, and like two shimmering sapphires, I was charming. Nevertheless, I could not look at myself quite at my ease, for the glass was trembling without cessation, and my image reflected on its brilliant surface seemed as if it danced for joy.

I looked behind the glass to see what made it tremble.

A young man came out—a fine young man, with large black eyes and striking figure, whose coat was adorned by the rosette of the Legion of Honour. I blushed to think that I had been so foolish in in the presence of a stranger.

"Just look," said my mother to me, without taking any notice of him, "how fair you are; like a white rose."

"Mamma!" I cried.

"Only look at these white arms," and she pulled my sleeves above the elbow without the smallest scruple.

"But, mamma," I said, "what are you thinking of, before a stranger!"

"A stranger? it is a mirror."

"I don't mean the glass, but this young gentleman who was behind it, like a lover in a comedy."

"Eh! goose," cried my father, "you need not be so bashful. It is your husband."

"Edmond!" I cried out, and made a step forward to embrace him.

Then I fell back. He was so beautiful! I was so happy! Blind, I had loved in confidence. What made my heart beat now was a new love, swollen by the generosity of this truly noble man, who had ordered everyone to say that he was ugly, in order to console me for my blindness.



Edmond fell at my knees. Mamma put me in his arms, as she wiped away her tears.

"How lovely you are," said my husband to me, in an ecstasy.

"Flatterer!" I answered, looking down at him.

"No, when I alone was your mirror I always told you so—and see! my colleague, here, whom you have just consulted, is of the same opinion, and declares that I am right!"