Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/61

 happiest days of my life, and for which I have dearly paid by subsequent miseries!

I some times felt a degree of envy rise in my bosom when I read of the pleasures enjoyed by a social converse with our fellow creatures; and there were moments when I was tormented with the idea, that even my prisoners experienced some satisfaction in being able to communicate their feelings to each other. It is certain that had there been a possibility of placing them separately I should have done it, but I was incapable of making a new arrangement myself, and dared not confide in the boy. A circumstance, however, soon took place, which rendered them as completely wretched as my vindictive heart could desire.

On one of my nocturnal visits, I found the Count overwhelmed with an unusual gloom, and the mother supporting her child on her bed of straw, almost drowned in tears.—When I approached her, "See, barbarian! (cried she) the work of thy cruel hands;—behold this dear innocent victim devoured by