Victorine's mother had died broken-hearted in Mme. Couture's house;
and the latter, who was a near relation, had taken charge of the
little orphan. Unluckily, the widow of the commissary-general to the
armies of the Republic had nothing in the world but her jointure and
her widow's pension, and some day she might be obliged to leave the
helpless, inexperienced girl to the mercy of the world. The good soul,
therefore, took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and to confession once
a fortnight, thinking that, in any case, she would bring up her ward
to be devout. She was right; religion offered a solution of the
problem of the young girl's future. The poor child loved the father
who refused to acknowledge her. Once every year she tried to see him
to deliver her mother's message of forgiveness, but every year
hitherto she had knocked at that door in vain; her father was
inexorable. Her brother, her only means of communication, had not come
to see her for four years, and had sent her no assistance; yet she
prayed to God to unseal her father's eyes and to soften her brother's
heart, and no accusations mingled with her prayers. Mme. Couture and
Mme.
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