“Then she must start soon,” replied Mademoiselle Josephine; “it is for her good, and we should do wrong to keep her with us.”
Fleurange said nothing, but her eyes turned sadly from one of her old friends to the other. At length came the last day she was to pass with them. She made an effort to repress her tears, that she might not
distress them, and quietly put up her modest packages, actively aided by the doctor and his sister.
“An English proverb which I think very reasonable,” said the doctor, “places the hospitality which speeds the parting guest on a level with that which welcomes his coming: it is that which I am now showing you, my dear Fleurange.”
Fleurange had just hastily finished the repast always so sad before a journey. The doctor perceived her courage failing. He was himself greatly affected by her pale and youthful countenance, and in thinking of the long and lonely journey she was about to undertake, at the end of which she would be received by people, perhaps kind, but wholly unknown. Nevertheless, he resumed with an encouraging voice:
“Come, come, child, everything looks favorable yonder; show your courage, and do not allow yourself to be cast down.”
“You are right,” said Fleurange, rising. “I feel I have reason to bless God, and I only desire to be grateful. Be sure, at all events, that I shall be courageous.”
It was eight o’clock in the evening: the fiacre was waiting at the door to take her to the diligence. She went out, accompanied by the doctor and his sister, who entered the carriage with her. The night was dark, and the snow falling in great flakes, which the young girl, reared beneath the sky of Italy, now saw for the first time in her life. The spectacle excited curiosity mingled with fear. The new and the unknown seemed to surround her on every side, and these two things, generally so attractive to those of her age, bore now an aspect more calculated to depress her young heart than to expand it. She involuntarily shivered, and drew around her slender form
the thick cloak that felt too thin to protect her from the severity of the weather, to which she was so unaccustomed. They all remained silent for some moments. Fleurange pressed Mademoiselle Josephine’s hand, and carried it from time to time to her lips, in spite of the efforts of the latter to prevent it.
Mademoiselle Josephine, on her side, with a faltering voice renewed a multitude of counsels, which had already been repeated a thousand times—among others, to write to them often and regularly. Then she slipped on her arm a small basket which her provident kindness had filled with everything that could be useful to her on the way, as well as more than one souvenir which, when far distant, would recall her old friends.