Madelon knew that that time had gone by for ever;
and yet, in all her dreams for the future, her imagination
never went beyond a repetition of it all--only for her father
she, perhaps, substituted Monsieur Horace: for Monsieur
Horace, we may be sure, was not forgotten, any more than her
promise to him; though, indeed, this last had been so long in
abeyance that she had ceased to think of it as likely to be
speedily fulfilled. She had almost come to regard it as one of
the many things referred to that somewhat vague period when
she should be grown up, and when, in some way--how she did not
know--she would be released from the convent and from Aunt
Therese, and be at liberty to come and go as she pleased. In
the meantime she had almost given up hoping for Monsieur
Horace's return. The time when she had last seen him and heard
from him already seemed so remote to her childish memory. No
one ever spoke to her about him, and he never wrote to her.
She did not for a moment think he had forgotten her; she had
too much confidence in him for that; but by degrees a notion,
vague at first, but gradually becoming a fixed idea destined
to have results, established itself in foolish little
Madelon's head, that he was waiting till he should hear from
her that his fortune was made before he would come back to
her.
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