Claire, who felt with anger that Félicie was making herself ridiculous, struck in sharply:
“I do not agree with Félicie, but I think there should be limits, and I cannot say I see the use of staffing your head with all that foreign literature. It has never been our custom.”
“But do you not like to know what others think?”
“That is of small consequence,” said Claire, superbly.
“It is far better to do something useful,” announced her sister, threading her needle.
“One may do more useful work than embroider vestments, however,” Claire returned. She despised Félicie’s narrow interests, and if Nathalie had been one of her own rank, Claire would have warmly taken her side in the matter of books. As it was, Nathalie was too shy to fight the battle of the uses of self-improvement, but a life without new books or newspapers, which appeared to rest under the same ban, looked so empty to her that she consulted her husband.
His advice, as usual, was to please herself. “Order what you want, and ask no one.”
“But if it displeases your mother!” said Nathalie, timidly. “Then keep them in your own room. There they cannot be suspected of imperilling Félicie’s soul.”
She followed this counsel, though to her frank disposition even an appearance of concealment was hateful. And as it was known that newspapers and periodicals came to the house, she was constantly subject to remarks showing the disapproval in which such reading was held. Claire, it is true, looked at the parcels with envy, and would have given much to borrow them. It was not horror of them which withheld her, but dislike to be indebted even for so much to her sister-in-law, and invincible distrust of any one connected with M. Bourget of Tours.