Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/212

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"Remembered! (repeated Madeline emphatically) Oh, Madam! after heaven you were her first consideration." She then, as far as it concerned Madame D'Alembert, related the conversation which had passed between the Countess and her the evening preceding her death.

"You will be my friend, my consoler then! (exclaimed Madame D'Alembert, from whom the relation drew floods of tears, extending her hand to Madeline as she spoke); I open my heart to receive your consolations; my mother wished me to do so, and as I perform what she wished, so do I hope that the blessing she left me, may draw another down."—Madeline sighed, and laid her face upon the hand she held, to conceal the feelings, which, for a few minutes stopped her utterance; fervently, though silently, she prayed for the fortitude which she now wanted, to perform the task enjoined her by her lamented friend. Yet, alas! she said to herself, as she had done in her letter to her