better self. Be to Adrian, sweet one, what you have
been to me--enliven his sadness with your sprightly sallies; sooth his
anguish by your sober and inspired converse, when he is dying; nurse him as
you have done me."

Clara burst into tears; "Kind girl," said the Countess, "do not weep for
me. Many dear friends are left to you."

"And yet," cried Clara, "you talk of their dying also. This is indeed cruel
--how could I live, if they were gone? If it were possible for my beloved
protector to die before me, I could not nurse him; I could only die too."

The venerable lady survived this scene only twenty-four hours. She was the
last tie binding us to the ancient state of things. It was impossible to
look on her, and not call to mind in their wonted guise, events and
persons, as alien to our present situation as the disputes of Themistocles
and Aristides, or the wars of the two roses in our native land. The crown
of England had pressed her brow; the memory of my father and his
misfortunes, the vain struggles of the late king, the images of Raymond,
Evadne, and Perdita, who had lived in the world's prime, were brought
vividly before us. We consigned her to the oblivious tomb with reluctance;
and when I turned from her grave, Janus veiled his retrospective face; that
which gazed on future generations had long lost its faculty.

After remaining a week at Dijon, until thirty of our number deserted the
vacant ranks of life, we continued our way towards Geneva. At noon on the
second day we arrived at the foot of Jura. We halted here during the heat
of the day. Here fifty human beings--fifty, the only human beings that
survived of the food-teeming earth, assembled to read in the looks of each
other ghastly plague, or wasting sorrow, desperation, or worse,
carelessness of future or present evil. Here we assembled at the foot of
this mighty wall of mountain, under a spreading walnut tree; a brawling
stream refreshed the green sward by its sprinkling; and the busy
grasshopper chirped among the thyme. We clustered together a group of
wretched sufferers. A mother cradled in her enfeebled arms the child, last
of many, whose glazed eye was about to close for ever. Here beauty, late
glowing in youthful lustre and consciousness, now wan and neglected, knelt
fanning with uncertain motion the beloved, who lay striving to paint his
features, distorted by illness, with a thankful smile. There an
hard-featured, weather-worn veteran, having p