Then, as to Bruno,—Belasez was conscious in her heart that she loved him very dearly, though her affection was utterly unmingled with any thoughts of matrimony. She would have thought old Hamon as eligible for a husband, when he patted her on the head with a patriarchal benediction. It was altogether a friendly and daughterly class of feeling with which she regarded Father Bruno. But would Abraham enter into that? Was it wise to tell him?
Thinking and planning, Belasez fell asleep.
The ordeal did not come off immediately. It seemed to Belasez as if her father would gladly have avoided it altogether; but she was tolerably sure that her mother would not allow him much peace till it was done.
“Delecresse,” she said, the first time she was alone with her brother, “had we ever a sister?”
“Never, to my knowledge,” said Delecresse, looking as if he wondered what had put that notion into her head.
Evidently he knew nothing.
Genta, who was constantly coming in and out, for her home was in the same short street, dropped in during the evening, and Belasez carried her off to her own little bed-chamber, which was really a goodsized closet, on the pretext of showing her some new embroidery.
“Genta,” she said, “tell me when my sister died.”
“Thy sister, Belasez?” Genta’s expression was one of most innocent perplexity. “Hadst thou ever a sister?”
“Had I not?”