Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/128

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terminated in a manner that she knew must be pleasing to him.

But though the Countess had kept her promise, though Clermont was silent respecting de Sevignie, his mind was occupied in thinking of him; he could not believe that the deep dejection of his daughter was owing solely to the death of her friend, as his words, from regard to her delicacy had intimated: to the disappointment of her hopes relative to de Sevignie he was convinced it was principally owing, and with anguish intolerable he looked upon this drooping blossom, whose fair promise of maturity seemed now utterly at an end.

"But a few days ago, (he cried to himself) and, from the recollection of former calamities, I thought I could not be more wretched than I then was: but, alas! I now find I was mistaken—now, when I behold the sole solace of affliction, my only earthly hope, sinking beneath a grief which seems