ou, madame; to-morrow you shall see what I can do."

And Adrienne toiled the succeeding day, not only until her fingers and
body ached, but, until her very heart ached. Poor child! Little did she
think that she was establishing precedents against herself, by which
further and destructive exertions might be required. But the
apprehension of losing the pittance she actually received, and thereby
blasting all hopes from me, was constantly before her mind, quickening
her hand and sustaining her body.

During all this time Madame de la Rocheaimard continued slowly to sink.
Old age, disappointments and poverty were working out their usual
results, and death was near to close the scene. So gradual were the
changes, however, that Adrienne did not note them, and accustomed as
she had been to the existence, the presence, the love of this one
being, and of this being only, to her the final separation scarce
seemed within the bounds of possibility. Surely every thing around the
human family inculcates the doctrine of the mysterious future, and the
necessity of living principally that they be prepared to die. All they
produce perishes, all they imagine perishes, as does all they love. The
union of two beings may be so engrossing, in their eyes, have lasted so
long, and embraced so many ties, as to seem indissoluble; it is all
seeming; the hour will infallibly come when the past becomes as
nothing, except as it has opened the way to the future.

Adrienne at length, by dint of excessive toil, by working deep into the
nights, by stinting herself of food, and by means of having disposed of
the last article with which she could possibly part, had managed to
support her grandmother and herself, until she saw me so far done as to
be within another day's work of completion. At such a moment as this
all feeling of vanity is out of the question. I was certainly very
beautiful. A neater, a more tasteful, a finer, or a more exquisitely
laced handkerchief, did not exist within the walls of Paris. In all
that she figured to herself, as related to my appearance, the end
justified her brightest expectations; but, as that end drew near, she
felt how insufficient were human results to meet the desires of human
hopes. Now that her painful and exhausting toil was nearly over, she
did not experience the happiness she had anticipated. The fault was not
in me; but in herself. Hope had exhausted her spirit, and as if merely
to teach the vanity of the wis