odious to me, and I blushed to think how I had been
deceived; I took back my heart, and wrapped myself once more in the
cold monotony of my happiness.

"The morning was spent in deep and engaging studies with my husband,
whose willing disciple I was. During the day we took long and solitary
walks in the woods of St. Cloud or of Meudon; and in the evening a few
grave, and for the most part elderly, friends would meet and discourse
on various topics, with all the freedom of intimacy. These cold but
indulgent hearts inclined toward my youth, from that natural bias which
makes the love of the aged descend on the youthful, as the streams of
snow-covered summits flow downwards to the plain. But these hoary heads
seemed to shed their snows on me, and my youth pined and wasted away in
the ungenial atmosphere of age. There lay too great a space of years
between their hearts and mine! Oh, what would I not have given to have
had one friend of my own age, by the contact of whose warm heart I
might have dissolved the thoughts that froze within me, as the dew of
morning congeals upon the plants that grow too near these mountain
glaciers!

"My husband often looked sadly at me, and seemed alarmed at my pale
face and languid voice. He would have desired, at any cost, to give air
and motion to my heart. He continually tried to induce me to mingle in
diversions which might dispel my melancholy, and would use gentle force
to oblige me to appear at balls and theatres, in the hope that the
natural pride which my youth and beauty might have given me would have
made me share in the pleasure of those around me. The next morning, as
soon as I was awake, he would come into my room and make me relate the
impression I had produced, the admiration I had attracted, and even
speak of the hearts that I had seemed to touch. 'And you,' would he
say, in a tone of gentle interrogation, 'do you share none of these
feelings that you inspire? Is your young heart at twenty as old as
mine? Oh, that I could see you single out from among all these admirers
one superior being, who might one day, by his love, render your
happiness complete, and when I am gone, continue my affection for you
under a younger and more tender form!' 'Your affection suffices me,' I
would answer; 'I feel no pain; I desire nothing; I am happy!' 'Yes,' he
would rejoin, 'you are happy, but you are growing old at twenty! Oh,
remember that it is your task to close my eyes! Live and love! oh,