Adela might not perhaps have been convinced by this reasoning, but thenceforth whenever she said that anything was insupportable, her mother replied, "You did not find it so when the princess was here." Nor would Amelia suffer herself to be harshly treated without talking of the princess: even Chambéri, if Adela scolded him, would say, "Ah! Miss Adela, I see we want the princess here again." Adela began to be terribly annoyed with this raillery; then she got frightened, lest from its being so often repeated it might at last reach the ears of the princess; so that to avoid these constant allusions to her name, she endeavoured to be less impatient. When she had once become convinced that it was possible to repress her angry feelings, she found it was easy to do so; she perceived that three fourths of the things which vexed her, were in reality of no consequence to her, and that the only real harm she experienced from them, was that which she inflicted on herself by losing her temper. Some years afterwards, she saw the princess again, and could not help blushing a little when she thought of all the taunts which her first visit had brought upon her; but these things were now forgotten by her friends, for Adela had ceased to be a grumbler.
"Well!" said the Curé to Juliana, when he had finished his story. "What do you think of it?"
"I think," replied Juliana, a little discontented, "that she was a very ridiculous girl with her princess."
"What! ridiculous for correcting herself?"
"No, but for doing so on account of the princess."
"When we correct our faults it must be for some motive."
"There are many more important motives," said Juliana a little proudly, "which ought to have induced her to correct herself."
"Since you are so well acquainted with these things, Miss Juliana, let me know them," said the Curé, "and we will make a story about them."