delusion, and I painfully retraced my steps back into my dungeon. I
thought that solitude would now be a relief to me; that to weep
would somewhat ease my burdened heart? yet, strange to say, I could
not shed a tear. The extreme wretchedness of feeling this inability
even to shed tears excites, under some of the heaviest calamities,
is the severest trial of all, and I have often experienced it.

An acute fever, attended by severe pains in my head, followed this
interview. I could not take any nourishment; and I often said, how
happy it would be for me, were it indeed to prove mortal. Foolish
and cowardly wish! heaven refused to hear my prayer, and I now feel
grateful that it did. Though a stern teacher, adversity fortifies
the mind, and renders man what he seems to have been intended for;
at least, a good man, a being capable of struggling with difficulty
and danger; presenting an object not unworthy, even in the eyes of
the old Romans, of the approbation of the gods.



CHAPTER XV.



Two days afterwards I again saw my father. I had rested well the
previous night, and was free from fever; before him I preserved the
same calm and even cheerful deportment, so that no one could have
suspected I had recently suffered, and still continued to suffer so
much. "I am in hopes," observed my father, "that within a very few
days we shall see you at Turin. Your mother has got your old room
in readiness, and we are all expecting you to come. Pressing