very cruel," said Madame de Sonnes one day to me; "what have
we done to offend you, that you wish to punish us so severely? You
will take with you the peace of our house, until now so happy. We all
love you, leave us not, I beseech you."

All the reasons that I could state to justify my departure were
insufficient to satisfy her. The most important, indeed the only one,
I could not reveal, and she saw nothing but unconquerable caprice in my
refusal.

"Well then," she said at length, "we must, I suppose, resign ourselves
to your will; we are more indifferent to you than I thought. Why is it
not given to all to allow friendship to strike root in the heart just
deep enough to be plucked up without pain at any time?--Clementine will
some day be unhappy for this. I fear she will be quite ill."

These words pained me. I turned pale and trembled, faltering,
"Clementine suffer?"

Without the least suspicion of what was passing in my mind, Madame de
Sonnes said, "Come with me to my room." I followed; and on opening the
door, she said to her daughter: "He will not stay, you perhaps can
persuade him." Finding myself alone with her, I approached her.

What a beautiful picture of grief! It will never be effaced from my
memory. The terrors of endless misery which I have suffered in foreign
climes have not been able to deprive it of its charm and life. There
she sat in her plain attire, charming as a child of Eden; a fading
blossom of lilac hung from her head, peering forth by her simple veil,
as though it were a symbol of that which she most needed, repose.

When I approached her, she looked up, and her kindly beaming eyes,
filled with tears, smiled upon me. I took her hand, and kneeling
before her, sighed, "Clementine!"

She made no answer, nor did she smile.

"Do you also wish me to stay? Only command me and I will joyfully
obey, even if I should become more unhappy."

"More unhappy?" she replied, with an anxious look; "Are you then
unhappy with us!"

"You do not know that! You only wish to diffuse happiness around you;
but, Clementine, you accustomed me to a heaven too soon. If sooner or
later I should have to lose all, to lose your society (and such a time
might arrive, Clementine), how would it then be with me?" I asked,
while I pressed her hand against my throbbing heart.

"If you never separate yourself from us we shall not lose you," she
replied.

"Would to heaven I might not leave you but in dea