CHAPTER II.
Mademoiselle Guérin did not grow up in happy unconsciousness of her passing youth, nor was she indifferent to the fact.
Ambition is the ruling passion of the heart. There is none so lowly born in whom this fire does not burn. It is an ember under the ashes and needs but a breath to fan it into flame. Natural principles developing simultaneously with bodily growth, individual preferences begin to manifest themselves even in the tenderest years, as slight observation of juvenile ways attests; and, although the young mind looks forward as into a land of dreams, there is an object in the prospect that attracts its genius and shapes its plans. With the lapse of childhood the future becomes a question of greater seriousness; this was now the case with Mademoiselle Guérin, who felt that the one great idea of her childhood was materializing into a vocation the aims of which furnished subjects for her constant reflection.
For upwards of four years her mother's feeble health
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