Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/59

 —"O! Must I live to see this?" exclaimed my bewildered friend.

"Hearken to me, Pedro! Thou wishest for no living witness of my cruelty. Such, too, is my opinion; I want none of my shame—I have been thinking of means," pursued she pausing, clapping her left hand on her front, and grasping with the right, a dagger from her bosom—"I will relieve us both"—Here she pointed the dagger at the babe's bosom, while suspecting the horrid attempt, I wrested it from her. "Alas! I am lost," cried she flushing with irresistible violence out,of doors, and running to overtake her, I found she had entirely vanished.

On my return, I found my hapless friend playing with the little prattler. It was a moving scene! The child had been long in his father's arms and quite delighted till he missed his mother, and the nbecame quite distressed. I talked to him, consoled, and played with him, and his presence opened a prospect of new hopes and expectations to the widowed parent. "Her maternal heart doated on this infant," said