does happiness harden us to the sorrows of others! And now once
more it appears like yesterday. Poor creature, to be so quickly
forgotten, even by your only friend! Perhaps though it may not contain
a word about her. Come we will sit down on the sofa and read the letter
together."

Leah had become perfectly silent. Without exactly concealing the note
she had picked up, she held it in her hand, so that for the instant
Edwin forgot it. They seated themselves near the lamp and read:

"Dear Sir and Friend!

"_I should consider it my duty, even without the count's express
command, to relate to my dear friend's son, the particulars of an event
extremely sad in its nature, and which if it should reach him in its
bare outlines through the medium of the press, would be doubly
agitating._

"_So_--sine ambagibus--_for so-called preparation in such cases only
increases anxiety and dread, and men, dear Herr Doctor, know that fate
strides rapidly--we have lost our beautiful young mistress, the
countess, in a manner as sudden as it is distressing._

"_You are already aware, that the writer of this letter did not enjoy
any special favor or regard from the lady who has died so young. Yet I
do not need to assure you, that the brevity of this account, which is
garnished by no expression of feeling, is due solely to the haste
imposed upon me by the pressure of circumstances, and not by any lack
of sympathy in my master's misfortune. Such a thing would not only be
inhuman in general, but ungrateful in particular, in so far as the
noble lady at last did justice to the good will of her faithful servant
and honored him with a priceless token of her confidence._

"_To tell everything in due order, the countess, during the first few
days after you left us, made no change in her mode of life, but on the
third or fourth day--Monday, if I am not mistaken--remained shut up in
her own room, allowing no one but her maid to attend her. On Thursday
she again appeared at dinner, and to her husband's evident joy, seemed
gayer and more cordial than was her habit in the family circle. The
Italian tour of the prince and his wife, introduced the subject of
traveling, and the countess jestingly remarked that she had become, so
to speak_, blase _through descriptions of travel in most foreign
countries, but if any thing could please her, it would be to go alone
to the promised land. This remark was taken seriously, both by Count
Gaston and the count hi