overstepped all bounds on finding me untrue to my promise, since he was convinced that I quite agreed to all the wild plans of his daughter. She cast herself at his feet totally unlike the beautiful being she was formerly, she resembled an automaton moved by powerful springs, a figure only manifesting life in convulsive gestures. It is astonishing that we ever outlive some moments. I was banished, obliged to fly into solitude, and for a long time heard nothing of the city or what occurred there, as I avoided all intercourse with men. When I in some measure recovered my tranquillity of mind, and was able to bear the sight of friends, I heard that she was suffering from an incurable disease, and that her life was despaired of by the physician. How whimsically does fate sport with man and all human intentions! I was informed that her father in the extremity of grief, would willingly have given me his beloved child had he been able thereby to save her; that he would have despised the opinion of the world, and the objections of his family, could he by these means have saved his Juliet, by whose illness he had first learnt how much he loved her, and how much his life was bound up in hers. All was in vain,--she died in agonies, calling for me, and the disconsolate father heaped execrations upon me that will overtake me, ay,--as surely as her own.” These are, as nearly as possible, the affecting confessions of my unhappy friend. He added, in conclusion, that the whole of his property would be lost, unless he discovered a certain document for which he had long been searching, but which he could find nowhere. There are sufferings during which it is foolish to make even the attempt at offering consolation. Such sufferings must be lived through, they are peculiar to human nature, and he who is not overwhelmed by them but survives them, will afterwards see that to pass such a severe reprobation was essential to his happiness. “I am convinced,” said my friend a few days afterwards when I took leave of him, “that these execrations and the prophesies of the old fury will visit me. My life will be consumed in illness, misery, delirium, and poverty. The spirit of the departed will tread in my footsteps and sow poison, where, perhaps, some joy might otherwise have sprung.” I began to comfort him, calling to my aid, hope and consolation from every source, because such apprehensions are generally imaginary, and may be combated. Hope is at least more infinite than the all-engrossing sensation of such visionary fear. We separated, and for a long time I heard nothing of my friend Francis. I lived in foreign countries and returned some years after the period in question.