of gowns
and every sort of attire.

Joseph rented a little house in a suburb of London, engaged an old
Frenchwoman to attend me, and he, after all my husband, made himself my
servant, my gardener, my factotum. He ate in the kitchen with the maid,
waited upon me at table, and slept in the garret on a pallet.

"Am I not very wicked?" said I to myself every day, especially when I saw
his pallor and profound sadness. They had taught me in the convent that
the ties of marriage were a sacred thing and that one could not break
them, no matter how they might have been made; and when my patrician pride
revolted at the thought of this union with the son of my nurse
my heart pleaded
and pleaded
hard the cause
of poor J
Joseph. His (_Evidently torn before Alix
care, his wrote on it, as no words
presence, became are wanting in the text_.)
more and more
necessary. I knew not how to do anything myself, but made him my all in
all, avoiding myself every shadow of care or trouble. I must say,
moreover, that since he had married me I had a kind of fear of him and was
afraid that I should hear him speak to me of love; but he scarcely thought
of it, poor fellow:

reverence closed his lips. Thus matters stood when
one evening Joseph
entered the room
(_Opposite page of the where I was reading,
same torn sheet. Alix and standing
has again written upright before
around the rent_.) me, his hat
in his hand, said
to me that he had something to tell me. His expression was so unhappy that
I felt the tears mount to my eyes.

"What is it, dear Joseph?" I asked; and when he could answer nothing on
account of his emotion, I rose, crying:

"More bad news? What has happened to my nurse-mother? Speak, speak,
Joseph!"

"Nothing, Mme. la Viscomtesse," he replied. "My mother and Bastien, I
hope, are well. It is of myself I wish to speak."

Then my heart made a sad commotion in my bosom, for I thought he was about
to speak of love. But not at all. He began again, in a low voice:

"I am going to America, madame."

I sprung towards him. "You go away? You go away?" I cried. "And