Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/102

 united, and the happy Count thought his felicity was now complete.

Poor simple mortals as we are! that see not by every day's experience how often the accomplishment of our eager wishes proves the source of future misery!

The amiable Caroline was indeed the most desirable of women, the most engaging of wives; but unhappily her constitution had been too delicate to support her under a fatal passion which preyed upon her heart, and for which she had incessantly reproached herself; a slow but gentle decay imperceptibly weakened her lovely frame. She was sensible of her own situation before she gave her hand to the Count, but was persuaded by her friends that a happy union might restore her health. For a few weeks she appeared better, and being in the way of becoming a mother, a relapse into weakness, debility and languor, was attributed to that circumstance. She knew better, but she suffered them to mislead themselves, because she could not bear to see her friends unhappy. She struggled