Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/366

 and attention. Her dress indicated a person of quality, but of her face I had not the least knowledge. It appeared very deformed and ugly to my sight, and after a short pause, I eagerly asked the count, "pray have you got company to day?"

—"Not a soul."

—"But who is this strange lady on the balcony?"

—"I was sure you would not know her. It is my wife, the mother of this child."

—"Good God! So Caroline is dead?"

—"No, my friend," quoth he, with a smile mixed with bitterness, "I will not unpleasantly surprize you. It is the same Caroline, whom you once so passionately loved. The small-pox has quite disfigured her."

I clapped my hands with amazement. Thus had nature amply avenged itself for the jilting cruelty, with which she had formerly treated my luckless attachment.

—"Never mind, Carlos," resumed my friend, "though her beauty be gone, yer she will please you the more, by what she has gained in loveliness."