d'Este M."
Neither have I misled you about our fortune; it will amount, I
believe, to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know that to
you money is a consideration of small importance; therefore I
speak of it without reserve. Let me tell you how happy it makes me
to give freedom of action to our happiness,--to be able to say,
when the fancy for travel takes us, "Come, let us go in a
comfortable carriage, sitting side by side, without a thought of
money"--happy, in short, to tell the king, "I have the fortune
which you require in your peers." Thus Modeste Mignon can be of
service to you, and her gold will have the noblest of uses.
As to your servant herself,--you did see her once, at her window.
Yes, "the fairest daughter of Eve the fair" was indeed your
unknown damozel; but how little the Modeste of to-day resembles
her of that long past era! That one was in her shroud, this one
--have I made you know it?--has received from you the life of life.
Love, pure, and sanctioned, the love my father, now returning
rich and prosperous, will authorize, has raised me with its
powerful yet childlike hand from the grave in which I slept.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213