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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: Augustine, the younger. In order to justify this passion, which had
grown up in secret, it is necessary to inquire a little further into
the springs of the absolute government which ruled the old cloth-
merchant's household.
Guillaume had two daughters. The elder, Mademoiselle Virginie, was the
very image of her mother. Madame Guillaume, daughter of the Sieur
Chevrel, sat so upright in the stool behind her desk, that more than
once she had heard some wag bet that she was a stuffed figure. Her
long, thin face betrayed exaggerated piety. Devoid of attractions or
of amiable manners, Madame Guillaume commonly decorated her head--that
of a woman near on sixty--with a cap of a particular and unvarying
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