The only freedom between the two took place
before the eyes of the old man in the evenings.
Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other
events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from
his mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for
hours together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties,
other than by Breton silence or a positive denial.
At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine
musician, and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was
perfected. The fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far.
The doctor was called upon to decline the overtures of Madame
d'Aiglemont, who was thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months
later, in spite of the secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on
this subject, Savinien heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he
made use of the incident in another attempt to vanquish his mother's
obstinacy; but she merely replied:--
"If the d'Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
why we should do so?"
In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
eighty-eight years old, declined visibly.
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