tial sweetness--which include all sentiments from
sisterly to maternal love--forbidden to me, on pain of ridicule as
distressing as if I wore dresses and ornaments, that my ugliness and
deformity would render absurd? I wonder, if I were now plunged into the
most cruel distress, whether I should suffer as much as I do, on hearing
of Agricola's intended marriage? Would hunger, cold, or misery diminish
this dreadful dolor?--or is it the dread pain that would make me forget
hunger, cold, and misery?

"No, no; this irony is bitter. It is not well in me to speak thus. Why
such deep grief? In what way have the affection, the esteem, the respect
of Agricola, changed towards me? I complain--but how would it be, kind
heaven! if, as, alas! too often happens, I were beautiful, loving,
devoted, and he had chosen another, less beautiful, less loving, less
devoted?--Should I not be a thousand times more unhappy? for then I
might, I would have to blame him--whilst now I can find no fault with
him, for never having thought of a union which was impossible, because
ridiculous. And had he wished it, could I ever have had the selfishness
to consent to it? I began to write the first pages of this diary as I
began these last, with my heart steeped in bitterness--and as I went on,
committing to paper what I could have intrusted to no one, my soul grew
calm, till resignation came--Resignation, my chosen saint, who, smiling
through her tears, suffers and loves, but hopes--never!"

These word's were the last in the journal. It was clear, from the blots
of abundant tears, that the unfortunate creature had often paused to
weep.

In truth, worn out by so many emotions, Mother Bunch late in the night,
had replaced the book behind the cardboard box, not that she thought it
safer there than elsewhere (she had no suspicion of the slightest need
for such precaution), but because it was more out of the way there than
in any of the drawers, which she frequently opened in presence of other
people. Determined to perform her courageous promise, and worthily
accomplish her task to the end, she waited the next day for Agricola,
and firm in her heroic resolution, went with the smith to M. Hardy's
factory. Florine, informed of her departure, but detained a portion
of the day in attendance on Mdlle. de Cardoville preferred waiting for
night to perform the new orders she had asked and received, since she
had communicated by letter the contents of Mother Bunch's j