any grounds for them. The 'pardon and peace' has never been one day absent from my memory, strange if it should, when it is the ground-work, the only hold I have to reconcile me to myself: But, alas! if I lay hold on that for consolation, if I look on those words as a sacred command, what must I now sacrifice to the same mandate? My wife, my dear innocent wife, the mother of my children, the sweet comforter under all my misfortunes, must I give up her society, fly her arms? Oh! stern and cruel!"
"Stop, Sir (said Ernest, interrupting him) reflect, who you are accusing, remember that, to us short-sighted mortals, the events which often appear most distressing, are intended for our greatest blessings."
"Ernest," replied Ferdinand, "you are a natural philosopher, you know not the difficulty of being a practical one, and at your age the passions have lost their turbulence. O, that I also was old, or laid peaceably in my grave! But I forget Claudina," (added he, rising briskly, and rushing to her apartment.)
