ing, it is my
intention to celebrate my marriage with Madame Roland, which will
compel you to treat her with the respect and deference due to my wife.
For certain reasons, it is expedient you should marry before me. You
will have as a dowry your mother's fortune, amounting to more than a
million francs. From this very day, I shall take the necessary steps to
form a suitable match for you, and, for that purpose, I shall accept one
of the many offers I have received for your hand.' After this
conversation, I lived more alone than ever, never meeting my father
except at mealtimes, which generally passed off in the utmost silence.
So really dull and lonely was my present existence, that I only waited
for my father to propose any suitor he might approve of, to accept him
with perfect willingness. Madame Roland, having relinquished all further
ill-natured remarks upon the memory of my deceased parent, indemnified
herself by inflicting on me the continual pain of seeing her appropriate
to herself the various trifles my dear mother had exclusively made use
of. Her easy chair, embroidery-frame, the books which composed her
private library, even a screen I myself had embroidered for her, and in
the centre of which were our united ciphers: this woman laid her
sacrilegious hands on all the elegant articles with which my mother's
taste and my affection had ornamented her apartments."

"I can well imagine all the horror these profanations must have caused
you."

"Still, great as were my sufferings, the state of loneliness, in which I
found myself, rendered them even greater."

"And you had no one, no person in whom you could confide?"

"No one; but at this time I received a touching proof of the interest my
fate excited, and which might have opened my eyes to the dangers
preparing for me. One of the two persons present, during the scene with
Madame Roland I so lately described, was a M. Dorval, a worthy old
notary, to whom my mother had rendered some signal service. By my
father's orders, I never since then entered the salon when strangers
were there; I had never, therefore, seen M. Dorval after the eventful
day when I spoke so undisguisedly to Madame Roland; great, therefore,
was my surprise to see him coming towards me one day, in the park, while
I was taking my accustomed walk. 'Mademoiselle,' said he to me, with a
mysterious air, 'I am fearful of being observed by your father; here is
a letter,--read it, and destroy it immedi