This she had
indeed done, but in a manner of late too common, and which renders a patron
perhaps even more formidable than a declared enemy: for, in order to
justify herself, she had cruelly slandered her niece, while she affected to
pity her misfortunes.
"Madame de la Tour, whom no unprejudiced person could have seen without
feeling sympathy and respect, was received with the utmost coolness by
Monsieur de la Bourdonnais; and when she painted to him her own situation,
and that of her child, he replied, 'We will see what can be done--there are
so many to relieve--why did you affront so respectable a relation?--You
have been much to blame.'
"Madame de la Tour returned to her cottage, her bosom throbbing with all
the bitterness of disappointment. When she arrived, she threw herself on a
chair, and then flinging her aunt's letter on the table, exclaimed to her
friend, 'This is the recompense of eleven years of patient expectation!' As
Madame de la Tour was the only person in the little circle who could read,
she again took up the letter, which she read aloud. Scarcely had she
finished, when Margaret exclaimed, 'What have we to do with your relations?
Has God then forsaken us? He only is our father! Have we not hitherto been
happy? Why then this regret? You have no courage.' Seeing Madame de la Tour
in tears, she threw herself upon her neck, and pressing her in her arms,
'My dear friend!' cried she, 'my dear friend!' But her emotion choked her
utterance.
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