ame, "Clementine." She thanked me in a few words, not without
blushing. All the rest did the same; but I was unable to reply. They
asked my name; I told it them, bowed, and left the company.

I was often afterwards in the amphitheatre, and my way led me
frequently through the street in which M. Albertas lived. Her I did
not see again; but her image was constantly hovering before me, in my
waking hours as well as in my dreams. The hope of beholding the
beautiful vision again forsook me; but not so my longing after her.

Now, for the first time, I felt that I stood alone in the world, and
that I could not cling to a being akin to myself. I was without a
mother and father, without a sister or brother. Beloved by the family
of my uncle, I still looked upon myself amidst them, only as a
fortunate orphan; and upon all who loaded me with their kindness, I
looked as upon beings elevated above myself.

The time approached when I was to be sent to the academy of
Montpellier. M. Etienne repeated to me his wishes, and conjured me not
to disappoint his expectations. In the excess of his confidence in my
youthful faculties, he saw in me the future protecting angel of the
Protestant church in France. He gave me his blessing, whilst the whole
family stood weeping round me as I took my farewell. I promised to
come to Nismes in all my vacations, and went away overpowered with
grief.

The distance from Montpellier to Nismes is full eight leagues. I
walked in the shade of mulberry-trees, between the golden fields of
corn, and along the vineyards on the chain of hills, overtopped by the
gray Sevennes. But the air was glowing, and the ground beneath my feet
burning. After three hours' walk, I sank fatigued on the banks of the
Vidourle, in the shade of a neat villa and its chesnut trees.

I reflected on my past and future life. I computed the time I had
lived, and the space of time still remaining, according to the general
measure, for my sphere of action. I found I had still forty years,
and, for the first time, I shuddered at the shortness of our life. The
oak on the mountains wants one century for its development, and stands
for another in its full vigour, while man's existence is so transitory!
And wherefore is it thus? How shall he employ his faculties? Not a
long life, but a life of variety, is given to mortal man by nature.
This thought quiets me. Well, then, I said to myself, forty years
more, and I shall stan