“Well, it is—indeed, I dare not tell you.”
“Pray tell me,” said Fleurange, “what has displeased you? There is nothing in the letter I am not willing to correct according to your advice.”
“It is—but you cannot change that.”
But what is it, then, dear mademoiselle? You really frighten me,” insisted Fleurange with a disturbed air.
“You cannot change your baptismal name,” said the other, at length.
“My baptismal name?” exclaimed Fleurange with surprise. “Does my name displease you to such a degree? I am sorry, for Madre Maddalena liked it so much! She said it signified the flower of the angels—the fairest of all the angels—the angel Gabriel, whom she considered my patron. And she called me Gabrielle as often as Fleurange.”
“Gabrielle!” cried Mademoiselle Josephine eagerly. “Gabrielle! Ah! that is a name everybody can understand. So that is the meaning of Fleurange, according to your Madre Maddalena? Then I beseech, I conjure you, to assume that name and give up the other!”
The doctor had for some minutes been occupied in reperusing Professor Dornthal’s letter, which he kept the evening before; he now raised his eyes, and attended to the conversation. While Fleurange was still hesitating what reply to make to Mademoiselle Josephine’s singular request, he said:
“I do not understand my sister’s persistency on this point. As to my own opinion, it is opposed to hers. But it may be that the simpler of the two names will be more in conformity
with the tastes of the good German family that awaits you, and perhaps Gabrielle would have a better reception than Fleurange. Besides,” he continued, smiling, “your young cousins beyond the Rhine would doubtless pronounce the name in a way to diminish its charm and deprive it of all meaning according to the pious and poetical interpretation you have just given it.”