"So I perceive, my dear," said her mother, smiling, "you speak of it so calmly."
At this moment, Caroline heard her father calling her, and ran out to join him; she was always happy to be his companion, and responded with all her heart to the passionate affection which he showed her. Caroline was the only survivor of Monsieur and Madame de Manzay's eight daughters, and during her infancy her health had been so delicate, as to cause them the greatest anxiety. Continually agitated by the fear of losing her, their only thought had been to preserve their treasure: they trembled lest the slightest opposition should endanger her fragile existence, or cast a cloud over a life which might have so short a duration. For some years past, these terrible apprehensions had ceased, but Caroline had been so long accustomed to have her own way, that the effect survived the cause. She was accustomed to no other rule than her caprice, or the prompting of a disposition naturally upright and generous. When her fancies or her self-love did not interfere, she was ready to do everything to oblige, and diffused around her all the cheerfulness natural to her age: but if it at all crossed in her wishes, nothing could be obtained from her, and even her kindness of heart was insufficient to conquer her temper. In such unhappy moments, which were but too frequent, she would answer her mother with petulance, refuse to walk with her father, or sing him the airs he loved, and behave roughly to her little brother, whom she nevertheless loved with all her heart, and considered almost as her own child. Being ten years old, when Stephen was born, she had never thought of him as a rival, but as a protégé. She was habitually kind and indulgent, and would spend whole hours in building card-houses for him, or in telling him stories. It is true she did not like him to amuse himself with others: as she could not appropriate him to herself, like his parents, she devoted herself to him; but she did appropriate him, in fact, and one of the principal causes of her dissatisfaction with Denis was, that Stephen preferred his stories to hers, and his noisy games to the more tranquil pleasures procured him by his sister.
"What does it signify, if Stephen enjoys himself better with Denis than with you?" said Robert to her one day.
"It displeases me."
"But why?"
"Because he is so whimsical; a week ago he was interrupting me perpetually, to make me tell him over and over again the story of the Wonderful Cat, and now, when I call him on purpose, he says it wearies him."
"Naturally enough, when you propose telling it to him at the very time that Denis is just in the finest part of a story about robbers or battles."
"And twenty times have I begged Denis not to tell him any more such stories: but he does not care for a word that is said to him."
"Stephen would be very sorry if he left off, I can assure you: look how attentive he is."