im without the
consent of the Count, and too proud to take me in his poverty. So one
day, after his stormy interview with my uncle, he came to me and said
he was going away to endeavor to get fame, or wealth, to bestow upon
me and make himself more worthy in the eyes of the Count de Rossillon.
Yet he wished to release me from any feeling of obligation to him, as,
he said, I was too young and had too little acquaintance with life and
society to know fully my own heart. It would not be right, he thought,
to bind me to himself by any promise. I told him my affection for him
would never change, but acquiesced in his arrangements with a sad and
foreboding heart. In a few weeks, he embarked for India.

"Then my uncle roused himself from the inertia of his quiet habits and
made arrangements for a journey through France and Italy, which he
said I was to take with him.

"I received the announcement with indifference, being wholly occupied
with grief at the bitter separation from your father. The change
however proved salutary, and, in a week after our departure, I felt
hope once more dawning in my heart.

"The country through which we travelled was sunny and beautiful, veined
with sparkling streams, shadowed by forests, studded with the olive
and mulberry, and with vines bearing the luscious grape for the
vintage. The constant change of scene and the daily renewal of objects
of interest and novelty, combined with the elasticity of youth,
brought back some degree of my former buoyancy and gayety. My uncle
was so evidently delighted with the return of my old cheerfulness, and
exerted himself so much to heighten it in every way, that I knew he
sincerely loved me, and was doing what he really thought would in the
end contribute to my happiness. He judged that my affection for your
father was a transient, youthful dream, and would soon be forgotten;
he fancied, no doubt, I was even then beginning to wake up from it. He
wished to prevent me from forming an early and what he considered an
imprudent marriage, which I might one day regret, unavailingly.

"And it proved to be all right, my Adele. Your father and I were both
young, and the course the Count de Rossillon took with us, was a good
though severe test of our affection. In the meanwhile, I was secretly
sustained by the hope that your father's efforts would be crowned with
success, and that, after a few years, he would return and my uncle,
having found, that nothing could draw