Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/74

 cloaths alone it was known to be that of the Caroline he had lost. Kneeling on the earth, Bertrand solemnly vowed, by the chaste spirit of her o'er whose remains he wept, never to know another earthly love, but to devote the remainder of his days to heaven. His friends conveyed him and the body to his parents, who endeavoured to prevail on him to cancel his vow, but in vain, and as soon as the necessary formalities could be gone through, he took the religious habit.

"His parents, disappointed in their hopes relative to him—their hopes of seeing a little smiling race of his prattling about them, pined away, and were soon laid beside the bones of her, who had been the innocent cause of their trouble.

"Bertrand then gave up the house of his forefathers, and the greatest part of the fortune appertaining to it, to a near and distant relation; by this time the turbulence of his grief had abated, and he soon after be-