"I was at your age my Adele when I first met your father. He was not
the bronzed and careworn man you see him now. Ah! no. He was young and
gay, with a falcon glance and, black wreathing locks hanging over his
white, smooth brow. His father was of noble blood, and sympathized
warmly with the dethroned Bourbons. He was no lover of the great
Consul. The political troubles in France had operated in ways greatly
to impoverish his house.
"He owned and occupied only the remnant of what had been a large
estate, adjoining that of the Count de Ros.
"While acquiring his education, your father, except at occasional
intervals, was six years from home, and it so happened that I never
met him in my childhood. Indeed, the families were not on terms of
intimacy. On his return from the University, I first saw him. _Eh!
bien!_ It is the same old story that you have heard and read of, in
your books, my Adele. We became acquainted, I will not stop now, to
tell you how, and soon learned to love each other. Time passed on, and
at last your father sought the consent of my uncle, to our marriage.
But he put aside the proposition with anger and scorn. He thought that
Claude Dubois was neither distinguished nor rich enough to match his
niece. In his heart, he had reserved me for some conspicuous position
in the great circle at Paris, while I had given myself to an obscure
youth in Picardy.
"Your father was too honorable to ask me to marry him without the
consent of the Count, and too proud to take me in his poverty.
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