"Madame Raynal, do
take my side, and forbid her."
"Why, what is it to you?" said Rose, haughtily.
"If it was not something to me, should I thwart my dear young lady?"
"No. And you shall have your own way, if you will but condescend to give
me a reason."
This to some of us might appear reasonable, but not to Jacintha: it even
hurt her feelings.
"Mademoiselle Rose," she said, "when you were little and used to ask me
for anything, did I ever say to you, 'Give me a REASON first'?"
"There! she is right," said Josephine. "We should not make terms with
tried friends. Come, we will pay her devotion this compliment. It is
such a small favor. For my part I feel obliged to her for asking it."
Josephine's health improved steadily from that day. Her hollow cheeks
recovered their plump smoothness, and her beauty its bloom, and her
person grew more noble and statue-like than ever, and within she felt
a sense of indomitable vitality. Her appetite had for some time been
excessively feeble and uncertain, and her food tasteless; but of late,
by what she conceived to be a reaction such as is common after youth has
shaken off a long sickness, her appetite had been not only healthy
but eager.
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