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158 could lay down my life to spare the pain you are suffering."

"My own sweetest sister!" exclaimed he, drawing her tenderly towards him.

"Marie was never worthy of you. Vain, she sought but for flattery, where you gave affection; selfish, she thought only of her own passing amusement, heedless of the pain which she inflicted on you. In her childish pleasures, herself was ever the first object; and now, ambitious and calculating, she grasps at more glittering toys, to gratify the same vanity in a higher form, and with interest instead of amusement for her object. She is incapable of caring for any one but herself."

"Francesca, you are too severe. She did love me once; but absence, and, as you must own yourself, the temptations by which she is surrounded—"

Francesca was about to contradict him—the next moment she checked the impulse; if it was any consolation, why not let him think that he was once beloved? "It seems to me, dear Guido, that youth has passed away from us both,"—this was the philosophy of eighteen—"for, young as we are, how different every thing appears to what it did! But a few months since, how we looked forward to our arrival in Paris! Now it would be