"As for the divorce I so much lamented, it was to be regretted only for the sake of the son whom it had outlawed, for he was the son of a lawful marriage in the eyes of the world, if not a sacred one in the eyes of the church. "For the boy thus cruelly wronged there seemed no opening on earth. He was disowned, disinherited, delegalized, deprived even of a name in this world. All earth was closed against him. "But all Heaven was open to him. The church, Heaven's servant, would open her arms to receive the child the world had cast out. The church in baptism would give him a name and a surname; would give him an education and a mission. I must, like Hannah of old, devote my son, even from his childhood up, to the service of the altar, and the church would do the rest. "How comforted I was! I had something still to live for! My outcast son would be saved. He could not inherit his father's titles and estates; he could not be a duke, but he would be a holy minister of the Lord; he might live to be a prince of the church, an archbishop or a cardinal. "Foolish ambition of a still worldly mother you may think. Yes! but he was her only son, and she was worse than widowed. "I agreed to all the good priest said. I promised to dedicate my son to the service of the altar. "The next Sunday I went to the chapel of Santa Maria and had my child christened. I gave him in baptism the full name of his father. Beppo and Madelena stood as his sponsors. They told me St. John would be his patron saint. "I rallied from my torpor. I built a roomy cottage in a mountain dell near the chapel of Santa Maria, furnished it comfortably, and moved into it, and engaged an Italian nurse and housekeeper, for I had resolved to pass my life among the simple, kindly people who were the only friends misfortune had left me. "Another trial awaited me--a light one, however, in comparison to those I had suffered and outlived. "This trial came when my son was but little over a year old, and I had been about six months in the "Hermitage," as I called my new home. "One morning I received a file of English papers for the month of May just preceding. In the papers of the first week in May I saw announced the birth of your son, called the infant Marquis of Arondelle, and the heir. I read of the great rejoicings in all your various seats throughout the United Kingdom, and the congratulations of royalty itself, upon this auspicious event. I clasped my disinherited son to my bosom and wept the very bitterest tears I had ever shed in my life.