ree months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any
exertion.

His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw
with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that
there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort
possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support
her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw and
by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to
support life.

Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time
was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence
decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving
her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt
by Beaufort's coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the
chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who
committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he
conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a
relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but
this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted
affection. There was a sense of justice in my father's upright mind
which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love
strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the
late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set
a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and
worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the
doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her
virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing
her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace
to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes
and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is
sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her
with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and
benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto
constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During
the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had
gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after
their union they sought the pleas