Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/187

 The tears of Madeline fell as she perused the narrative of her unfortunate grandmother, which (too much affected by it to speak), she returned in silence to her father.

"You can better conceive than I can describe (said he) the feelings I experienced on perusing this story. I wept for my mother, I blushed for my father, and my heart was divided between affliction and resentment.

"With the natural impetuosity of youth, I determined not to let another day elapse without pleading for those rights which I had been so long and so unjustly deprived of; but convinced that my agitation would not permit me to plead for them in person, as I could wish, I resolved on sending a letter by a special messenger to the castle of Montmorenci, where I knew my father resided, declaring the late discovery of my birth, and the manner in which I had been protected from the distresses his desertion had exposed me to.