richest and proudest peers, handsome, clever—is it not so? At morn I shall go hence, and, what sort of triumph and pleasure can I anticipate in the metropolis?"
"And you will find both: but, alas! human enjoyment is all too dearly atoned. The ancients gave the balance of life to a dark goddess, who, following in the track of fortune, as the shadow follows the sunshine, enforces bitter payment for our few and transitory delights. Nothing is good but evil comes thereof. I took you, Henrietta, when an infant, from your dying mother's arms. Your cradle was placed in my laboratory; and often have I closed the midnight volume, to watch the fitful slumbers of your childhood. I have since given you all I had to give, my time, my knowledge; and for your sake loved on—hoped on. And now, that you are my sweet and intelligent companion, and my whole heart is bound up in you—your smile my all of sunshine, your step my only music—you must leave me; and to a solitude saddened by the remembrance of a beloved one, who never more can be what she has been to its lonely and weary occupant."
