The Romance of My Childhood And Youth

nately Olympe distressed her by the fantastical turn of her mind. She took great interest from her earliest age in the details of housekeeping, was troublesome, humdrum even, said her mother. She disliked to read, was much annoyed at her father's absence from home, whose motives she loudly incriminated. Urged to this by the servants' stories, she quarrelled with him, bitterly reproached her mother for the number of books she read; and she introduced into the home, where the careless indifference of one member, the resignation of the other, might have brought about peace, an agitation which fed the constant disputes. However, the husband and wife, so much disunited, were proud of their daughter's beauty. Her father would often say: " She deserves a prince," while her mother would reply: " A shepherd would please her better." Nothing foretold that this admirable statue would be animated some day. Olympe was fifteen years old, and in her family the marriage bells had always rung at that age. Olympe's parents were humiliated at the thought that no one had as yet asked for their daughter's hand. The romantic Pelagic dreamed of an " unforeseen " marriage for Olympe, as she had done formerly for herself. But no predictions had been made concerning it. Madame Seron could never induce her daughter to go to a fortune-teller with her. Alas! the way seemed obscure, but just as it had been impossible for her to find her own hero among the youths of the town, so ...