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 moments like these by a sorrow which will destroy all the hopes I entertained of your being a consoler to my child."

"May every event (cried Madeline, sinking on her knees), may every event (with uplifted hands) which could place her in want of consolation, be far, far distant from her. But should such an event now happen, Oh! may Heaven grant me power equal to my inclination to give it to her!"

"After my death," proceeded the Countess.

"Oh! Madam (interrupted Madeline), do not talk of it—you stab me to the very soul by doing so."

"Rather rejoice than grieve to hear me do so (said the Countess); how much more dreadful, at the very moment when I stand, perhaps, upon the brink of the grave, to find me trembling, shrinking at the idea of dissolution! I have always tried to act so as to be prepared for it; I have always prayed, that I might be composed when it approached—might be able, in the last extremity of na-