the rest! but here you are!
how good it is! the Lord has had mercy upon us!"

Yes, all these old stories bring the tears to my eyes, when I think of
them; it is like a long forgotten dream, and yet it is real. These
joys and sorrows that we recall, attach us to earth, and though we are
old and our strength is gone and our sight is dim, and we are only the
shadows of ourselves; yet we are never ready to go, we never say, "It
is enough!"

These old memories are always fresh; when we speak of past dangers we
seem to be in the midst of them again; when we recall our old friends,
we again press their hands in imagination, and our beloved is again
seated on our knee, and we look in her face, thinking, "She is
beautiful!" and that which seemed to us just and wise and right in
those old days, seems right and wise and just still.

I remember--and I must here finish my long story--that for many months
and even years there was great sorrow in many families, and nobody
dared to speak openly, or wish for the glory of the country.

Zebede came back with those who had been disbanded on the other side of
the Loire, but even he had lost his courage. This came from the
vengeance and the condemnations and shootings, massacres and revenge of
every kind which followed our humiliation; from the hundred and fifty
thousand Germans, English, and Russians, who garrisoned our fortresses,
from the indemnities of war, from the thousands of emigres, from the
forced contributions, and especially from the laws against suspects,
and against sacrilege, and the rights of primogeniture which they
wished to be re-established.

All these things so contrary to reason and to the honor of the nation,
together with the denunciations of the Pinacles and the outrages that
the old revolutionists were made to suffer--altogether these things
have made us melancholy, so that often when we were alone with
Catherine and the little Joseph, whom God had sent to console us for so
many misfortunes, Mr. Goulden would say, pensively:

"Joseph, our unhappy country has fallen very low. When Napoleon took
France she was the greatest, the freest, and most powerful of nations,
all the world admired and envied us, but to-day we are conquered,
ruined, our fortresses are filled with our enemies, who have their feet
on our necks; and what was never before seen since France existed,
strangers are masters of our capital--twice we have seen this in two
years. See what it cos