Madame d'Aubonne beheld her daughter Eudoxia, who had attained the age of thirteen, increase every day in judgment, talent, and good dispositions of all kinds. It was with a feeling of intense happiness, that she discovered in her the germ and hope of every virtue. Nothing was wanting to Eudoxia, but the consciousness that virtues were given to us for our own practice, and not for the purpose of judging the conduct of others. Her own earnest love of all that was good, and her constant endeavour to do what she considered best, disposed her to blame others with severity, and to exact from them a rectitude, equal to that which she herself displayed in all her actions.
Though Eudoxia was too reserved, and even too timid to express her opinions to any one but her mother, to whom she confided everything, and who, on her part, had the most entire confidence in her daughter, nevertheless Madame d'Aubonne carefully opposed this tendency; for she knew that it was not sufficient to watch over words only, but that we must also regulate our thoughts; and those of Eudoxia appeared to her, in this respect, neither just nor reasonable. However, she had rarely occasion to reprimand her on this account, for with the exception of her cousin Constance, who was much younger than herself, and to whom, as she was very fond of her, she was, consequently, more indulgent, she saw scarcely any but older persons, and such as she would never have presumed to censure.
Madame d'Aubonne had resided many years in the country, attending to her invalid father; having had the misfortune to lose him, she returned, to Paris, which she again left, for the purpose of passing a couple of months at Romecourt, with Madame de Rivry, an old friend, who resided there with her daughter Julia, whom Eudoxia scarcely knew, not having seen her for six years.
Madame d'Aubonne found at Romecourt her aunt, Madame de Croissy, who was to spend there the same time as herself. Madame de Croissy was educating her two granddaughters, Adèle and Honorine, with whom Eudoxia was as little acquainted as with Julia, although they were her cousins. Her timidity, therefore, made her look with much terror on this new society, especially as the other three girls, though much about her own age, were very far from being as reasonable as herself.
Julia, though at heart a very good-dispositioned child, was very much spoiled by her mother, and sometimes answered her with a degree of impertinence which made every one present shrug their shoulders. Adèle regarded an untruth as the simplest thing in the world; she told falsehoods in sport; she told them in earnest; she even told them at the very moment in which she might have been convicted of the fallacy of her assertions.
As to Honorine, she was a perfect wild colt, without discipline, without reflection; never for a moment dreaming that her fancies could meet with the slightest opposition, nor that those things which gave her pleasure could be attended with any inconvenience. Madame de Croissy troubled herself very little about their education; provided they made no noise, and did not attempt to join in conversation, she always considered girls to be quite sufficiently well brought up; therefore she habitually left them with the servants, and felt annoyed, that at Romecourt they were almost always kept in the drawing-room, because Eudoxia and Julia were very little away from their mothers.
This plan was equally disagreeable to the two girls, but little accustomed to the society of their grandmamma, who, when at home, never concerned herself about them, any further than to tell them to hold themselves upright whenever she thought of it, or to be silent whenever their voices were heard above a whisper. They would have been much better pleased if left with their grandmother's servants, with whom they were accustomed to associate, provided, however, that they could have had Julia with them; for as to Eudoxia, they cared very little for her.
It is true that she had not been very amiable towards them, for she was quite horrified at their giddy manners, their want of obedience, and their tone of mockery, to which she was not accustomed. Astonished beyond measure, at their ignorance of almost every principle which, from her childhood, she had been taught to respect, she blushed to the eyes when she beheld Honorine reading without scruple a letter which she found open, playing tricks with the gardener's son, or standing at the park railing, in front of the high road, chatting with all the little boys and girls of the village. She trembled when she saw Adèle, even at her grandmamma's side, and under her very spectacles, cut the needleful with which she was embroidering, in order to shorten it, and be able to say that her task was finished. Nor, in fine, could she recover from her surprise, when she saw that the very moment in which Julia received an order from her mother to do anything, was precisely that which she selected for doing the opposite. At these times she imagined herself transported into a new world, where all was strange and incomprehensible to her: she avoided conversing with her companions, as she had nothing to say which would be agreeable to their tastes; and, besides, she would scarcely have known how to reply to them, had they spoken to her. She therefore left them as soon as she was able, and took refuge with her mother.
The others easily perceived, that though Eudoxia said nothing to them, she did not approve of their conduct; they were, therefore, very ill at ease in her society, and in no way pleased when Madame d'Aubonne, who was anxious that Eudoxia should accustom herself to live with others, adapt herself to their habits, and tolerate their defects, sent her to share in their amusements and conversation.