The things we do!

By-and-by, as I said,
perhaps you will marry--I cannot arrange all these matters
beforehand. I used to think sometimes that perhaps you might
have come out on the stage a few years hence. Would you have
liked that, Madelon?"
"Yes--no--oh, I don't know, papa--I want you--I want you!"
"Yes--you will want me, _pauvre petite_. Good Heavens! that a
child so small, so young should be left without me to take
care of her! Bah, I must not think of it. Madelon, there is
one thing more you must promise me--never to become a nun."
"A nun, papa?"
"Yes, a nun," he repeated, in his feeble vehement way, "a nun
like your aunt Therese. Do you know what it means? To grow
pious, and narrow-minded, and sour, to live for ever shut up
between four walls from which there is no escape, to think
yourself better than all the world. Madelon, promise me never
to become a nun; if I thought that were the future in store
for you--promise me, I say."
"I promise, papa," she said, quite solemnly, putting her hands
together with a quaint little gesture; "indeed I should not
like it at all.


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