life, her fate to me, ah! how proud am I of my own! I shall replace the parents she has lost, but I shall likewise be her husband! her lover! Her first affections will be mine,—our hearts will flow into each other, and our lives mingle into one; nor during their whole current, shall she have to say that I have given her an hour's pain.

"How rapturous are my feelings, Ourika, when I reflect that she will be the mother of my children, and that they will owe their life to my Anais! Ah! they will be beautiful and good as she is! Tell me, merciful heaven, what have I done to deserve such happiness?"

Oh! what a different question was I then addressing there! I had listened to his passionate discourse with the most unaccountable sensations. Thou knowest, O Lord, that I envied not his happiness, but why gavest thou life to poor Ourika? Why did she not perish on board the slave ship she was snatched from, or on the bosom of her mother. A little African sand would have covered her infant body, and light would have been the burthen. Why was Ourika condemned to live? To live alone? Ever and for ever alone? Never to be loved! O my God! do not permit it! Take thy poor Ourika from hence! No creature wants her; must she linger desolate through life!

This heart-rending thought seized me with more violence than it ever had. I felt my knees sinking under me. My eyes closed, and I thought that I was dying.

At these words the poor Nun's agitation increased. Her voice faultered, and a few tears ran down her withered cheeks. I besought her to suspend her narration, but she refused. "Do not heed me," said she, "grief has no hold over my heart now: it has been rooted out of it. God has taken pity on me, and has saved me from the abyss I had fallen into, for want of knowing and of loving him. Remember that I am happy now, but alas! how miserable I was then!"

Until the moment I have just been speaking of, I had borne with my grief; it had undermined my health, but I still preserved a kind of power over my reason. Like a worm in fruit, it ate through my very heart, while all seemed full of life without. I liked conversation; discussion animated me; I had even the gaiety of repartee. In short, until then my strength had surpassed my sorrow, but I felt that my sorrow would now surpass my strength.

Charles carried me home in his arms. Succour was promptly administered to me, and I returned to my senses. I found Madame de B. by my bed-side, and Charles holding one of my hands. They had both attended me, and the sight of their anxious, sorrowful countenances penetrated my very soul. I felt life flow again. My tears began to flow, Madame de B. gently wiped them away. She said not a word, did not ask a question, while Charles overwhelmed me with a thousand. I know not what I answered. I attributed my indisposition to the heat and fatigue. He believed it, and all my bitter feelings returned on perceiving that he did; I immediately ceased weeping. How easy is it, thought I, to deceive those whose interest lies not with you! I withdrew my hand, which he was holding, and strove to assume a tranquil air.

Charles left us as usual at five o'clock. I felt hurt at his doing so. I would have wished him to be uneasy about me. Indeed I was suffering greatly! He would still have gone to his Anais, for I should have insisted on it, but he would have owed the pleasure of his evening to me, and that might have consoled me. I carefully hid this sensation from him. Delicate feelings have a sort of chastity about them. They should be guessed, or they are thrown away. There must be sympathy on both sides.

Scarcely had Charles left us, than I was seized with a violent fever, which augmented the two following days. Madame de B. watched me with her usual tenderness. She was distracted at the state I was in, and at the impossibility of removing me to Paris, whither the celebration of her son's marriage obliged her to go the next day.

My physician answered for my life, if I remained at St. Germain, and she at last consented to leave me. The excessive tenderness she showed on parting with me, calmed me for an instant; but after her departure, the real and complete loneliness I was left in for the first time, threw me into despair. The vision was realized that my imagination had so long dwelt upon; I was dying far away from those I loved; the sound of my lamentations reached not their ear. Alas! it would but have disturbed their joy. I fancied them given up to the most ecstatic bliss, whilst I lay pining on my sickbed. They were all I cared for in the world, but they wanted not my care. I had but them through life, yet I was not wanted by them. The frightful conviction of the uselessness of my existence made me sick of it. It was a pang not to be endured, and sincerely I prayed that I might die of my illness. I neither spoke or gave any sign of life. The only distinct idea I could express in my mind was, I wish I could die. Then at other times I became excessively agitated. All that had passed in my last conversation with Charles rushed into my mind. I saw him lost in the ocean of delight he had pictured to me, whilst I was abandoned to a death as solitary as my life. This produced a kind of irritation, more painful to endure than grief; I increased it by filling my brain with chimeras; I fancied Charles coming to St Germain, being told that I was dead, and being made miserable by my death. Can it be believed? The idea, of grieving him rejoiced me. It would be a revenge. Revenge! for what? for his goodness, for his having been the protecting angel of my life? Such guilty thoughts were soon replaced by horror, at having conceived them. My grief I thought no crime, but thus giving way to it, might lead to one: then I tried to collect my inward strength, that it might fight against this irritation; but even that I sought not where I should have found it. I was ashamed of my ingratitude. Oh! let me die, I exclaimed, but let no wicked passions enter my heart. Ourika is a portionless orphan, but innocence is yet her's. Let her not tarnish it by ingratitude. She will pass away like a shadow upon earth, but in her grave she will at least rest in peace. Her friends are all happy, then let Ourika be so, and die as the leaves fall in autumn? I fell into a state of languor when this dangerous fever left me. Madame de B. continued to reside at St. Germain, after Charles's marriage. He often visited her, accompanied by his Anais, never without her. I always suffered more when they were present. I know not whether the image of their happiness made me feel my misfortune more acutely, or that the sight of Charles renewed my remembrance of our old friendship, which I sought to find what it once was, but could not. Yet he always spoke to me just as before: it resembled the friendship he used to show me, as the artificial flower does the natural one. It was the same, except that it had neither life nor perfume.

Charles attributed the change in my temper to the weakness of my constitution. I believe that Madame de B. knew more of its real cause: she guessed my secret, and was sensibly affected by it.

Anais gave hopes of increasing her family, and we returned to Paris. My languor increased daily. The spectacle of domestic happiness so peaceful—of family bonds so endearing—of love so passionate and yet so tender—was misery to a poor wretch who was doomed to live in no other bonds but those of dependence and pity.

Days and months passed on thus. I took no share in conversation: my talents were neglected: the only books I could endure were those in which a feeble picture of my own sufferings was traced. I fed upon these poisons,—I feasted on my tears,—and remained shut up in my room whole hours giving way to them.

The birth of a son completed the measure of Charles's happiness. He came, his heart overflowing with joy, to give me the news; and I recognised in the expressions of his delight, some of the accents of his former confidence. It was the