"It's not certain you'll lose her; nothing's settled yet," their host rejoined quickly; not as if to anticipate their tears, but in the tone of a man saying what was most agreeable to himself. "We should be very happy to believe that. Fifteen is very young to leave us."
"Oh," exclaimed the gentleman with more vivacity than he had yet used, "it is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could keep her always!"
"Ah, monsieur," said the elder sister, smiling and getting up, "good as she is, she's made for the world. Le monde y gagnera."
"If all the good people were hidden away in convents how would the world get on?" her companion softly enquired, rising also.
This was a question of a wider bearing than the good woman apparently supposed; and the lady in spectacles took a harmonising
