generous passion of
my love; but science has asked for too much of my time. I have not had
leisure to look for my ideal; and if perchance it has crossed my path,
I have not been able either to study it or recognise it. You have been
fortunate, Bernard, but then, you do not sound the deeps of natural
history; one man cannot have everything."

As to my suspicions about Edmee's marriage, he rejected them with
contempt as morbid fancies. To him, indeed, Edmee's silence showed an
admirable delicacy of feeling and conduct.

"A vain person," he said, "would take care to let you know all the
sacrifices she had made on your account, and would enumerate the titles
and qualities of the suitors she had refused. Edmee, however, has too
noble a soul, too serious a mind, to enter into these futile details.
She looks upon your covenant as inviolable, and does not imitate those
weak consciences which are always talking of their victories, and making
a merit of doing that in which true strength finds no difficulty. She is
so faithful by nature that she never imagines that any one can suspect
her of being otherwise."

These talks poured healing balm on my wounds. When at last France openly
declared herself an ally of America, I received a piece of news from the
abbe that entirely set my mind at ease on one point. He wrote to me that
I should probably meet an old friend again in the New World; the Count
de la Marche had been given command of a regiment, and was setting out
for the United States.

"And between ourselves," added the abbe, "it is quite time that he made
a position for himself. This young man, though modest and steady, has
always been weak enough to yield to the prejudices of noble birth. He
has been ashamed of his poverty, and has tried to hide it as one hides
a leprosy. The result is that his efforts to prevent others from seeing
the progress of his ruin, have now ruined him completely. Society
attributes the rupture between Edmee and him to these reverses of
fortune; and people even go so far as to say that he was but little
in love with her person, and very much with her dowry. I cannot bring
myself to credit him with contemptible views; and I can only think that
he is suffering those mortifications which arise from a false estimate
of the value of the good things of this world. If you happen to meet
him, Edmee wishes you to show him some friendship, and to let him
know how great an interest she has always taken in hi