a secret intuition always told me that you were still in the land of the
living. I used to sit for hours and think of how sweet and lovely you
were in infancy; how your little rosy fingers used to play with and pull
my long mustache--which was black then, my dear--when I leaned over to
kiss you in your cradle--recalling all your pretty, engaging little baby
tricks, remembering how fond and proud I was of you, and grieving over
the loss that I seemed to feel more and more acutely as the years went
on. The birth of my son only made me long still more intensely for you,
instead of consoling me for your loss, or banishing you from my memory,
and when I saw him decked with rich laces and ribbons, like a royal
babe, and playing with his jewelled rattle, I would think with an aching
heart that perhaps at that very moment my dear little daughter was
suffering from cold and hunger, or the unkind treatment of those who
had her in charge. Then I regretted deeply that I had not taken you away
from your mother in the very beginning, and had you brought up as
my daughter should be--but when you were born I did not dream of our
parting. As years rolled on new anxieties tortured me. I knew that
you would be beautiful, and how much you would have to suffer from the
dissolute men who hover about all young and pretty actresses--my blood
would boil as I thought of the insults and affronts to which you might
be subjected, and from which I was powerless to shield you--no words can
tell what I suffered. Affecting a taste for the theatre that I did not
possess, I never let an opportunity pass to see every company of
players that I could hear of--hoping to find you at last among them. But
although I saw numberless young actresses, about your age, not one of
them could have been you, my dear child--of that I was sure. So at last
I abandoned the hope of finding my long-lost daughter, though it was a
bitter trial to feel that I must do so. The princess, my wife, had
died three years after our marriage, leaving me only one
child--Vallombreuse--whose ungovernable disposition has always given me
much trouble and anxiety. A few days ago, at Saint Germain, I heard some
of the courtiers speak in terms of high praise of Herode's troupe,
and what they said made me determine to go and see one of their
representations without delay, while my heart beat high with a new
hope--for they especially lauded a young actress, called Isabelle; whose
graceful, modest,