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Rh every direction, oozes through the marshy earth, becomes stagnant, and is habited by the loathsome reptile. That which would have been a green haunt, with its fair fountain, is a dreary and useless quagmire. Is it not thus with the mind, Guido?"

He made no reply; and Francesca was too anxious for his taking some rest previous to his journey, to pursue their discourse. The next morning she rose early; but as she bent over Guido's pillow to awaken him, she started to observe how oppressed was his breathing, and how feverish his slumber. "It is evidently the rest of complete exhaustion—sleep won by hours of weary restlessness." She had not the heart to rouse him, and seated herself watchfully beside, while the fear of his being ill when far away made her heart sink with affectionate apprehension. "Yet it is best he should go,"—and, for the first time, the sense of her own utter loneliness, when he should be gone, rose sadly before her.

"Great God!" exclaimed she, stepping softly to the window, which commanded the view of many streets, "to think, amid this multitude of human beings, we have neither kindred nor friends—not one to care for our welfare, not one to rejoice in our joy, not one to sorrow in our sorrow."