think I was forsaken by the
whole world, and doomed to an eternal bereavement of the heart without
ever having loved. I often wept in secret, and regretted that the poor
black woman had not allowed me to perish in the waves of my native
shore, more merciful to me than the ocean, of the world on which I was
cast.

"Now and then, an old man of great celebrity would come to visit, in
the name of the Emperor, the national house of education, and inquire
into the progress of the pupils in the arts and sciences, which were
taught by the first masters of the capital; I was always pointed out to
him as the brightest example of the education bestowed on the orphans.
He invariably treated me with peculiar predilection from my childhood.
'How I regret,' he would sometimes say, loud enough for me to hear,
'that I have no son!'

"One day I was called down to the parlor of the Superior. I found there
my illustrious and venerable friend, who seemed as discomposed as I was
myself. 'My child,' said he, at length, 'years roll on for every
one,--slowly for you, swiftly for me. You are now seventeen; in a few
months you will have attained the age at which you must leave this
house for the world; but there is no world to receive you. You have no
country, no home, no fortune, and no family in France; your unprotected
and dependent situation has made me feel anxious on your account for
many years. The life of a young girl who earns her livelihood by her
labor is full of snares and bitterness, and a home offered by friends
is both precarious and humiliating to the spirit. The extreme beauty
that Nature has bestowed upon you will, by its brightness, dispel the
obscurity of your fate and attract vice, as the brightness of gold
induces theft. Where do you mean to take shelter from the sorrows and
dangers of life?' 'I know not,' I answered; 'and I have thought
sometimes that death alone can save me from my fate!' 'Oh,' he replied,
with a sad and irresolute smile, 'I have thought of another mode of
escape, but I scarcely dare propose it.' 'Speak without fear, sir,' I
answered; 'you have during so many years spoken to me with the look and
accent of a father, that I shall fancy I am obeying mine, in obeying
you.' 'Ah, he would be happy indeed,' he replied, 'who had a daughter
such as you! Forgive me if I have sometimes indulged in such a dream!
Listen to me,' he added in a more tender and serious tone; 'and answer
me in thorough frankness and libe