ell, when I saw
she was hastening after me with Mary and Domingo. But what seems most
strange is, that Madame de la Tour has this very night had a dream attended
with the same circumstances.'

"'My dear friend,' I replied, 'nothing, I believe, happens in this world
without the permission of God. Dreams sometimes foretell the truth.'

"Madame de la Tour related to me her dream, which was exactly similar; and,
as I had never observed in either of those persons any propensity to
superstition, I was struck with the singular coincidence of their dreams,
which, I had little doubt, would soon be realized.

"What I expected took place. Paul died two months after the death of
Virginia, whose name dwelt upon his lips even in his expiring moments.
Eight days after the death of her son, Margaret saw her last hour approach
with that serenity which virtue only can feel. She bade Madame de la Tour
the most tender farewell, 'in the hope,' she said, 'of a sweet and eternal
reunion. Death is the most precious good,' added she, 'and we ought to
desire it. If life be a punishment we should wish for its termination; if
it be a trial, we should be thankful that it is short.'

"The governor took care of Domingo and Mary, who were no longer able to
labour, and who survived their mistresses but a short time. As for poor
Fidele, he pined to death, at the period he lost his master.

"I conducted Madame de la Tour to my dwelling, and she bore her calamities
with elevated fortitude. She had endeavoured to comfort Paul and Margaret
till their last moments, as if she herself had no agonies to bear. When
they were no more, she used to talk of them as of beloved friends, from
whom she was not distant. She survived them but one month. Far from
reproaching her aunt for those afflictions she had caused, her benign
spirit prayed to God to pardon her, and to appease that remorse which the
consequences of her cruelty would probably awaken in her breast.

"I heard, by successive vessels which arrived from Europe, that this
unnatural relation, haunted by a troubled conscience, accused herself
continually of the untimely fate of her lovely niece, and the death of her
mother, and became at intervals bereft of her reason. Her relations, whom
she hated, took the direction of her fortune, after shutting her up as a
lunatic, though she possessed sufficient use of her reason to feel all the
pangs of her dreadful situation, and died at length in agonies of despair