She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her _see_ her
godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more
because surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large
duchess-sofa, the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and
the piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still
remained to her, the Abbe Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only
visitors whom she received, were, in the midst of these inanimate
objects representative of the past, like two living memories of her
former life to which she attached her present by the love her
godfather had blessed.
After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet
habits diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little
home.
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