After having first betrayed her sincere astonishment at the vehement indignation of Mademoiselle Plouernel, and after a sense of suppressed anger and even rage succeeded her astonishment, the Marchioness of Tremblay collected herself, reflected for a moment, and promptly imparting to her features the sweetest expression that they could assume, and to her voice the most affectionate accents into which she was capable of modulating it, she rose from her reclining chair and said to her niece, who was still trembling with contempt and disgust:
"Dear child—come to my arms. Let me embrace you—you are an angel."
Not a little astonished at this outburst of tenderness, the young lady hesitated to respond to the invitation of her aunt, who repeated:
"Yes, come and let me embrace you; you are a noble being, worthy of the name that you carry; you are an angel, an archangel; you have issued triumphant from a trial to which I wished to put you."
"A trial?" queried Mademoiselle Plouernel without any effort at concealing her incredulity; but immediately after, and yielding to the impulse of all pure and straightforward characters, who are ever more disposed to believe good than evil, Bertha approached the Marchioness, who, taking her niece in her arms, pressed the noble girl to her heart and kissed her effusively.
"Blessed be God! It was only a trial!" repeated the young girl, smiling with gratification and feeling her chest relieved of a heavy weight. "But aunt, dear aunt, I mean not to reprove you—only those are tried who are doubted. Did you doubt me?"
"No; of course not! But in our days one sees a King's love turn so many young heads, even the most solid, that—"
"And you mistrusted the solidity of mine?"
"However certain I was, I wished, dear niece, to see you prove it in all the luster of good judgment and purity. Only, and neither do I now mean to convey a reproach, I do deplore that a young person of your birth should, as it sometimes happens with you, forget herself to the point of speaking irreverently of the priests, the bishops, the Princes of the Church, and above all of the great King, our master, of whom your brother has the honor of being one of the most faithful, the most devoted servants."
"Aunt, let us not discuss the worthiness of Bossuet and his fellows, any more than the worthiness of him whom you style your master; he never will be mine. I have but one Master: He thrones in heaven."