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By Root 2893 0

will share them with you; for I entreat her to give to the poor the immense fortune reverting to her from her father, now a madman, and her brother who died last September with his mother. Tell the angel who will watch over your future destiny, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man, who like Satan thought himself for an instant equal to God, but who now acknowledges with Christian humility that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom. Perhaps those prayers may soften the remorse he feels in his heart. As for you, Morrel, this is the secret of my conduct towards you. There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living."

"Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—"Wait and hope." Your friend,"

"Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo."

During the perusal of this letter, which informed Valentine for the first time of the madness of her father and the death of her brother, she became pale, a heavy sigh escaped from her bosom, and tears, not the less painful because they were silent, ran down her cheeks; her happiness cost her very dear. Morrel looked around uneasily. "But," he said, "the count's generosity is too overwhelming; Valentine will be satisfied with my humble fortune. Where is the count, friend? Lead me to him." Jacopo pointed towards the horizon. "What do you mean?" asked Valentine. "Where is the count?—where is Haidee?"

"Look!" said Jacopo.

The eyes of both were fixed upon the spot indicated by the sailor, and on the blue line separating the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, they perceived a large white sail. "Gone," said Morrel; "gone!—adieu, my friend—adieu, my father!"

"Gone," murmured Valentine; "adieu, my sweet Haidee—adieu, my sister!"

"Who can say whether we shall ever see them again?" said Morrel with tearful eyes.

"Darling," replied Valentine, "has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words?—"Wait and hope.""

Footnotes

[1] "The wicked are great drinkers of water; As the flood proved once for all."

[2] $2,600,000 in 1894.

[3] Knocked on the head.

[4] Beheaded.

[5] Scott, of course: "The son of an ill–fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his looks that cast of inauspicious melancholy by which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish those who were predestined to a violent and unhappy death."—The Abbot, ch. xxii.

[6] Guillotine.

[7] Dr. Guillotin got the idea of his famous machine from witnessing an execution in Italy.

[8] Brucoea ferruginea.

[9] "Money and sanctity, Each in a moiety."

[10] Elisabeth de Rossan, Marquise de Ganges, was one of the famous women of the court of Louis XIV. where she was known as "La Belle Provencale." She was the widow of the Marquise de Castellane when she married de Ganges, and having the misfortune to excite the enmity of her new brothers–in–law, was forced by them to take poison; and they finished her off with pistol and dagger.—Ed.

[11] Magistrate and orator of great eloquence—chancellor of France under Louis XV.

[12] Louis David, a famous French painter.

[13] Ali Pasha, "The Lion," was born at Tepelini, an Albanian village at the foot of the Klissoura Mountains, in 1741. By diplomacy and success in arms he became almost supreme ruler of Albania, Epirus, and adjacent territory. Having aroused the enmity of the Sultan, he was proscribed and put to death by treachery in 1822, at the age of eighty.—Ed.

[14] Greek militiamen in the war for independence.—Ed.

[15] A Turkish pasha in command of the troops of a province.— Ed.

[16] The god of fruitfulness in Grecian mythology. In Crete he was supposed to be slain in winter with the decay of vegetation and to revive in the spring. Haidee's