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Book, page 401 / 491 "The best!--Pray don't say the best!" cried Emilie. "Ah! dear mamma, for me the worst! Let me beseech you not to sacrifice my happiness for ever by such a marriage!" "And what other can you expect, Emilie, in your present circumstances?" "None," said Emilie. "And here is an establishment--at least an independence for you--and you call it sacrificing your happiness for ever to accept of it!" "Yes," said Emilie; "because it is offered to me by one whom I can neither love nor esteem. Dearest mamma! can you forget all his former meanness of conduct?" "His present behaviour makes amends for the past," said Mad. de Coulanges, "and entitles him to my esteem and to yours, and that is sufficient. As to love--well educated girls do not marry for love." "But they ought not to marry without feeling love, should they?" said Emilie. "Emilie! Emilie!" said her mother, "these are strange ideas that have come into the heads of young women since the Revolution. If you had remained safe in your convent, I should have heard none of this nonsense." "Perhaps not, mamma," said Emilie, with a deep sigh. "But should I have been happier?" "A fine question, truly!--How can I tell? But this I can ask you--How can any girl expect to be happy, who abandons the principles in which she was bred up, and forgets her duty to the mother by whom she has been educated--the mother, whose pride, whose delight, whose darling, she has ever been? Oh, Emilie! this is to me worse than all I have ever suffered!" Mad. de Coulanges burst into a passion of tears, and Emilie stood looking at her in silent despair.
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