fortune in these words,
which accidentally escaped from her: 'My godmother died on the
scaffold: she was a godmother of bad augury, Jenny died at
sixteen, Lucile died at sixteen, and I am now sixteen myself.'
The godmother of Antoinette was the queen Maria Antoinette.

"Another day, Antoinette was meditating over a pink at the
window. On seeing her with this flower in her hand, Gretry
imagined that the poor girl was suffering herself to be carried
away by a dream of love. It was the dream of death! He soon
heard Antoinette murmur; '_I shall die this spring, this
summer, this autumn, this winter!_' She was at the last leaf.
'So much the worse,' she said; 'I should like the autumn
better.' 'What do you say, my dear angel?' said Gretry,
pressing her to his heart. 'Nothing, nothing! I was playing
with death; why do you not let the children play?'

"Gretry thought that a southern journey would be a beneficial
change; he took his daughter to Lyons, where she had friends.
For a short time she returned to her gay and careless manner.
Gretry went to work again, and finished _Guillaume Tell_. He
went every morning, in search of inspiration, to the chamber of
his daughter, who said to him one day, on awaking: 'Your music
has always the odor of a poem; this will have that of wild
thyme.'

"Towards autumn, she again lost her natural gayety. Gretry took
his wife aside--'You see your daughter,' said he to her. At
this single word, an icy shudder seized both. They shed a
torrent of tears. The same day they thought of returning to
Paris. 'So we are to go back to Paris', said Antoinette; 'it is
well. I shall rejoin there those whom I love.' She spoke of her
sisters. After reaching Paris, the poor, fated girl concealed
all the ravages of death with care; her heart was sad, but her
lips were smiling. She wished to conceal the truth from her
father to the end. One day, while she was weeping and hiding
her tears, she said to him with an air of gayety: 'You know
that I am going to the ball to-morrow, and I want to appear
well-dressed there. I want a pearl necklace, and shall look for
it when I wake up to-morrow morning.'

"She went to the ball. As she set out with her mother, Rouget
Delisle, a musician more celebrated at that time than Gretry,
s