my word to him." "What matters it to you?" retorted the lover; "is it to be counted a misfortune that your happiness should cost only the life of a monster? Of what use is he to the world? Will any one be a loser by the destruction of a being who appears upon earth only to be the horror of all nature?" "Ha!" exclaimed Beauty, almost angrily, "know that I would lay down my life to save his, and that this Monster, who is only one in form, has a heart so humane, that he should not be persecuted for a deformity which he refrains from rendering more hideous by his actions. I will not repay his kindness with such black ingratitude." The Unknown, interrupting her, inquired what she would do if the Monster endeavoured to kill him; and, if it were decreed that one of them must slay the other, to which would she afford assistance? "I love you only," she replied; "but extreme as is my affection for you, it cannot weaken my gratitude to the Beast, and if I found myself placed in so fatal a position, I would escape the misery which the result of such a combat would inflict on me, by dying by my own hand. But why indulge in such dreadful suppositions? However chimerical, the idea freezes my blood. Let us change the conversation." She set him the example, by saying all that an affectionate girl could say, most flattering to her lover. She was not restrained by the rigid customs of society, and slumber left her free to act naturally. She acknowledged to him her love with a frankness which she would have shrunk from when in full possession of her reason. Her sleep was of long duration, and when she awoke she feared the Beast had failed in his promise to her. She was in this uncertainty when she heard the sound of a human voice which she recognised. Undrawing her curtains precipitately, what was her surprise when she found herself in a strange apartment, the furniture of which was not near so superb as that in the Palace of the Beast. This prodigy induced her to rise hastily, and open the door of her chamber. The next room was equally strange to her; but what astonished her still more, was to find in it the four chests she had filled the previous evening. The transport of herself and her treasures was a proof of the power and bounty of the Beast; but where was she? She could not imagine; when at length she heard the voice of her father, and rushing out, she flung her arms round his neck. Her appearance astounded her brothers and sisters. They stared at her as at one come from the other world. All her family embraced her with the greatest demonstrations of delight; but her sisters, in their hearts, were vexed at beholding her. Their jealousy was not extinguished. After many caresses on both sides, the good man desired to speak with her privately, to learn from her own lips all the circumstances of so extraordinary a journey, and to inform her of the state of his own fortune, of which he had set apart a large share for herself.