owers wafted on the breeze--this deep
silence, only broken by the murmur of the neighboring rill--all affected
me with one of these passing fits of vague and sweet emotion, which
one feels but cannot express. You well know it, my friend, who, in your
solitary walks, in the midst of your immense plains of flowering heath,
surrounded by forests of fir trees, often feel your eyes grow moist,
without being able to explain the cause of that sweet melancholy, which
I, too, have often felt, during those glorious nights passed in the
profound solitudes of America.

"But, alas! a painful incident disturbed the serenity of the picture.
Suddenly I heard Dagobert's wife say to him: 'My dear--you are weeping!'

"At these words, Agricola, Angela, and Magdalen gathered round the
soldier. Anxiety was visible upon every face. Then, as he raised his
head abruptly, one could see two large tears trickle down his cheek to
his white moustache. 'It is nothing, my children,' said he, in a voice
of emotion 'it is nothing. Only, to-day is the first of June--and this
day four years--' He could not complete the sentence; and, as he raised
his hands to his eyes, to brush away the tears, we saw that he held
between his fingers a little bronze chain, with a medal suspended to it.
That is his dearest relic. Four years ago, almost dying with despair at
the loss of the two angels, of whom I have so often spoken to you, my
friend, he took from the neck of Marshal Simon, brought home dead from a
fatal duel, this chain and medal which his children had so long worn.
I went down instantly, as you may suppose, to endeavor to soothe the
painful remembrances of this excellent man; gradually, he grew calmer,
and the evening was passed in a pious and quiet sadness.

"You cannot imagine, my friend, when I returned to my chamber, what
cruel thoughts came to my mind, as I recalled those past events, from
which I generally turn away with fear and horror. Then I saw once more
the victims of those terrible and mysterious plots, the awful depths of
which have never been penetrated thanks to the death of Father d'A.
and Father R., and the incurable madness of Madame de St.-D., the three
authors or accomplices of the dreadful deeds. The calamities occasioned
by them are irreparable; for those who were thus sacrificed to a
criminal ambition, would have been the pride of humanity by the good
they would have done. Ah, my friend! if you had known those noble
hearts; if you