murmurs, stillness and perfume, and led one gently by the soft and
soothing syllables to the repose of love, the still sleep of the soul,
unto the kiss upon the page which said farewell! The farewell and the
kiss both silently received, as the lips silently impressed them. I
have seen those letters all again; I have read over, page by page, this
correspondence, bound up and classed, after death, by the pious hand of
friendship; one letter answering the other from the first note down to
the last word written by the death-struck hand, to which love still
imparted strength. I have read them o'er, and burned them with tears,
in secret, as if I committed a crime, and snatching twenty times the
half-consumed page from the flames to read it once again. Why did I
thus destroy? Because their very ashes would have been too burning for
this world, and I have scattered them to the winds of heaven.

LVII.

At length the day came when I could reckon the hours that still
separated me from Julie. All the resources that I could command did not
amount to a sufficient sum to keep me three or four months in Paris. My
mother, who noticed my distress without guessing its cause, drew from
the casket which her fondness had already nearly emptied a large
diamond, mounted as a ring. Alas, it was the last remaining jewel of
her youth! She slipped it secretly into my hand, with tears. "I suffer
as much as you can, Raphael," she said with a mournful look, "to see
your unprofitable youth wasted in the idleness of a small town, or in
the reveries of a country life. I had always hoped that the gifts of
God, that from your infancy I rejoiced to see in you, would attract the
notice of the world, and open to you a career of fortune and honor. The
poverty against which we have to struggle does not allow us to bring
you forward. Hitherto such has been the will of God, and we must submit
with resignation to his ways, which are always the best. Yet it is with
grief I see you sinking into that moral languor which always follows
fruitless endeavors. Let us try Fate once more. Go, since the earth
here seems to burn beneath your feet,--go and live for awhile in Paris.
Call, with reserve and dignity, on those old friends of your family who
are now in power. Show the talents with which Nature and study have
endowed you. It is impossible that those at the head of the Government
should not strive to attract young men able, as you would be, to serve,
suppor