And in two years' time both his
sons-in-law had turned him out of their houses as if he were one
of the lowest outcasts."
Tears came into Eugene's eyes. He was still under the spell of
youthful beliefs, he had just left home, pure and sacred feelings had
been stirred within him, and this was his first day on the battlefield
of civilization in Paris. Genuine feeling is so infectious that for a
moment the three looked at each other in silence.
"_Eh, mon Dieu!_" said Mme. de Langeais; "yes, it seems very horrible,
and yet we see such things every day. Is there not a reason for it?
Tell me, dear, have you ever really thought what a son-in-law is? A
son-in-law is the man for whom we bring up, you and I, a dear little
one, bound to us very closely in innumerable ways; for seventeen years
she will be the joy of her family, its 'white soul,' as Lamartine
says, and suddenly she will become its scourge. When HE comes and
takes her from us, his love from the very beginning is like an axe
laid to the root of all the old affection in our darling's heart, and
all the ties that bound her to her family are severed. But yesterday
our little daughter thought of no one but her mother and father, as we
had no thought that was not for her; by to-morrow she will have become
a hostile stranger.
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