Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 1).djvu/232

 parent feels at seeing a beloved child wasting the bloom of youth in wretchedness,—pining, drooping, sinking beneath its pressure.—From such wretchedness may heaven preserve your father! Oh, never, never may the distresses of his child precipitate him to his grave!"

Madeline almost started, she looked earnestly at the Countess; and fancied that the energy with which her words had been delivered, declared a self-experience of the sorrow which she mentioned. The idea however was but transitory; and as she dismissed, she wondered she had ever conceived it. "No," she said to herself, "the Countess has felt no sorrow but what the common casualties of life have occasioned."

Both were silent for some minutes; Madeline at length spoke:—"It grows late, my dear madam, and I fear your staying longer in the night air may hurt you."