"However, it is quite certain, mamma, that one might choose some better time for travelling than the month of December."
"Not if it happened to be in that month that one had business to attend to which required travelling. You will one day learn, my child, that there are things more impossible than enduring the cold, or even than moving one's fingers when they are benumbed. You remember what Cæsar said: It is necessary that I should go, and it is not necessary that I should live.
"One might very well expose one's life, on occasions of importance, and yet not be able to do impossibilities, however important they might be."
"Such as putting in a pin or tying a shoe when one is cold?"
"I do not mean that," replied Cecilia, a little out of humour, "and besides you will allow, mamma, that our affairs are not of such importance as those of Cæsar."
"How do you know that? the importance of things is relative; I am not called upon to overturn the world; such a thing would give me no pleasure, but I have to settle a matter to which your father attaches great importance, and to show myself worthy of the confidence he reposed in me, when, on leaving for the army he placed all his affairs in my hands; in fine, it is necessary for me that he should be pleased with me, for on this depends the happiness of my life; and on your part, it is necessary that you should prove yourself able to support with courage unavoidable inconveniences. All these things are important, and yet," added Madame de Vesac, smiling, "I do not think we run any risk of dying on account of them."
"Oh, no! mamma," said Cecilia, smiling too, "but I assure you that even Cæsar would have found it very cold this morning."
"I have not the least doubt of it; but Cæsar was such a great man! Do you know, Cecilia, that if we were to examine with care, I feel sure that among his great actions we should find many which must have benumbed his feet and hands."
"In that case," said Cecilia, somewhat drily, "he must have been very fortunate if he could find matters to attend to which would prevent his thinking of the cold, for it is certainly very disagreeable."
"Undoubtedly," replied Madame de Vesac, carelessly; "but there are some persons who can manage to think of every thing. I am persuaded, for instance, that had you been in Clælia's place, when, flying from the camp of Porsenna, she crossed the Tiber on horseback, you would have found it excessively disagreeable, to have been obliged to wet your feet."